The Doctor's Wife: The Strictures of the Mind
by SherlockedWhovian9
Summary: **Read The Doctor's Wife for backstory** Sherlock is reunited with Dr. Watson, and with the Counsellor they are dispatched by Torchwood to investigate a serial killer targeting alien guests. The action intensifies once Sherlock identifies that the Counsellor's ex-husband the Doctor is on the kill list, and the killer has no intention to allow regeneration.
1. This Is Not Okay

John Watson wrenched his hand free of the strange woman's grasp, panting, his eyes wide with terror. He jumped out of the chair next to the fireplace and scrambled away.

"John," Sherlock said, his voice full of that low, patient drone John knew too well.

"Sherlock, _no_," he groaned. He pointed at Sherlock's new _friend_, that undeniably attractive woman with the blue eyes and the weird hair, colored somewhere between ginger and ash-blonde. "_That_ is not okay."

"I warned you."

John turned to look at his friend, aware of the new tone in his voice. What he saw confirmed his suspicions; Sherlock Holmes found all of this _amusing._

"Are you laughing at me, you git?"

Sherlock clamped down on his laughter, cleared his throat, and shook off the mirth. "No! No. Of course not." Then he did something that only people unfamiliar with him wouldn't have noticed. John noticed. Of course he noticed.

Sherlock's eyes had cut over to the woman's eyes for a split second.

John was on the verge of asking what their secret joke was and whether or not it was at his expense when he felt a flood of calm swamp through his system. It was so odd to be on the verge of panic, then suddenly as serene as – well, he only ever felt this calm after a wonderfully fulfilling coital adventure, and he hadn't had one of those since –

_Oh. Sadness._

He was watching this new _friend_ of Sherlock's carefully, and he noticed that her face fell when the wave of sadness had hit him. The merriment that seemed to always be frothing in her eyes evaporated.

"Are you alright?" she asked in that blank American accent. Sherlock had introduced her as Astrid Smith, but since that time he'd called her _Counsellor._ There wasn't much similarity between her and his old therapist, or there hadn't been until this moment when she'd shown a sincere concern for his well-being.

"Sherlock," John said, turning his attention back to his ex-flatmate, "I heard a _voice in my head._"

"I warned you about that."

John sighed. "Yes, you said she could talk directly into your brain and that she could manipulate people's moods. But it's a little different hearing you say that happens and actually feeling it happen."

The world's only consulting detective had the nerve to look offended. "Did you think I was making it up?"

"I don't know. I just don't know what I thought. Okay, yes. I probably thought that you were . . ._exaggerating._"

"Why would I exaggerate?"

"Because you wanted me to be impressed with your new . . ._friend._" John looked around at the flat his old friend shared with this – well, what was she? A psychic? That hardly seemed to be Sherlock's bailiwick, but maybe things had changed. After all, none of the furniture here was familiar. The parlor was very modern: grays, whites, blacks, and soft tans, chrome and leather and what had to have been faux fur, all of it speaking volumes of luxury and largesse trying to hide itself in form and function. It didn't seem like Sherlock at all, not any of it. The man had been in possession of a Union Jack pillow and a rather Shakespearean skull companion when they'd met. "Where's your skull?" John asked, feeling thick and hating it.

_Whatever it took to forget the pain and sadness_, he reminded himself.

"I can help with that," the American woman said.

"With what?" John snapped, turning his focus back to her. "Did you read my mind just now, is that it?"

She shrugged. "Maybe."

Another silent glance passed between Sherlock and the Counsellor.

"What was that?" John asked, pointing between the two of them. "What the hell was that?"

The Counsellor shrugged again. "He thought something, I reacted."

John pursed his lips for a moment, then shook his head. "No."

"No?" Sherlock asked, as if the problem was all John being inflexible and not this situation being clearly insane.

"No. This is too much, even for you. It's been four months since I've even seen you, and in that time you've met – whatever she is, a psychic, I suppose – and you've found a new flat and started in on your cases again. And that's grand, but it's too much for me."

The Counsellor let out an offended grunt. "I am _not_ a psychic."

"Where are you staying, John, hmm?" Sherlock asked, despite John's certainty that the man had already deduced the answer. He hadn't bothered to hide it. He knew that threads of the low quality, frequently laundered hospital linens surely clung to his rumpled clothing.

"You know where I've been staying," John said. He pulled himself up to his full height, trying desperately to push away whatever traces of shame clung to his circumstances.

The Counsellor sighed and rose from where she'd been sitting on the ottoman in front of the chair John had just vacated. She approached him slowly, her hands held out in front of her, palms up as if she was waiting for him to hand her something. He noticed again the silver rings on her index fingers, the silver bracelets around her shapely wrists, and the thin strands of silver connecting the rings to the bracelets. He looked up into her face, skepticism poisoning any trace of attraction. He pointed to her hands. "Sherlock, do you think her jewellery might, you know . . .?"

Sherlock sighed heavily, then wrenched up his right shirt sleeve to display his own bracelet and ring assembly. There was no evidence of the connecting silver strands, but he turned his hand and traced something, a slick reflection of light across his palm. "It's not a trick," Sherlock said, then cast another of those meaning-laden glances at the Counsellor.

She nodded and removed her jewellery. "Please," she said to John. "Let me try to help."

"Help what?"

"You're in pain," she said.

John let out a sharp bark of laughter. "And you think holding your hand will help me get over that, do you? I buried my _wife_ two weeks ago. I'm in no position –"

"Neither am I," she said. "I finalized a long, drawn-out divorce about a month ago. Believe me, I have no patience for that kind of . . .thing."

John looked from her to Sherlock, then around at the flat again. "Your circumstances would say otherwise."

He wanted to get a visceral response from his provocative taunt; it would have reduced her to his own, low, raw level of coping and responding. She didn't give him what he wanted. "We aren't shacking up in that way. We're sharing living quarters. The most we ever do is hold hands, I assure you."

John frowned. "I'm not jealous."

She cocked her head at him, an unspoken challenge: _Are you sure?_ That light mirthy froth was back in her attitude, and it reminded him very much of Irene Adler. "I didn't say you were jealous. I just wanted to back up my assertion that I'm not looking for any romantic attachments. Taking my hand should mean no more to you than a handshake."

"Except that I've already held your hand once and I didn't like it much."

Sherlock hummed as he paced across the room. "That's odd. I've found it a very stimulating experience from the very beginning."

"To the entire outside world that would sound like an admission of sexual attraction at the very least," John said.

"I'm sure it would."

"I don't see how this could help."

The Counsellor approached him again, moving very slowly, her hands still palm up in a gesture of supplication. "I won't bite."

"You have a slightly better idea of what to expect," Sherlock said patiently, his baritone voice thrumming through the room and sending John back in time to _before_, before the pain and the loss and the confusion. "It won't be so startling this time."

Another pulse of mood washed through the room. John looked around; the neutral colors on the walls and in the furniture seemed reassuring now, calming, peaceful . . ._encouraging._ He frowned at the Counsellor.

"I'll take it very slow," she said.

"Why are you trying to help me?" he asked.

"You're important to Sherlock. That makes you important to me." She gave him another shrug. "Besides, I've been browsing through your mind. You're a good man and you're in pain. I can't help my impulse to help."

He had so many things he wanted to say, so many questions to ask: _"Sherlock, how could you take up with a psychic?" "So are you telling me you two have not been shagging? Not even once?" "I don't want to believe this. Stop making me believe this."_ But John knew that all of this was stalling at this point. Sherlock wanted him to understand what had changed in his life, and he sincerely believed that touching this "Counsellor" of his would do the trick. Frankly, John was pretty sure of it, too, because the last touch had blown his mind wide open and –

He sighed. He reached out to her and took her hand in his.

_Close your eyes_, that voice, similar to the Counsellor's but somehow richer, more immediate and intimate, said. He gasped, but closed his eyes.

_John Watson, army captain and doctor, widower. Let me explain to you how I met your friend, Sherlock Holmes._ John watched the scenes unfold from this woman's point of view: he felt a strained sense of anger and loneliness, a choking sense of duty, and a breathtaking gift as she followed Sherlock to a bar and outlined her proposal to him. She offered to take him on a tour of space and time if he would just help her find her wayward spouse. He saw the difficulty the two of them initially had in trusting and communicating and he understood completely. He saw how her case baffled Sherlock, and he understood that, too. Then he felt the change in her, the way Sherlock's dogged determination to do what she asked and the way the intimacy of the thought-sharing led to trust and a profound new friendship that neither had even known they needed. She was unwaveringly loyal to him as a result and, John suspected, Sherlock was returning the faith in spades.

Naturally, the adrenaline of how the case ended and the mind-blowing spectacle of the Counsellor's regeneration would have been fulfilling to Sherlock's endlessly striving brain.

He thought to pull away from her then and absorb everything she'd shown him, but she persisted. A sweet, heady sense of adventure filled him, and he saw something Sherlock had seen before him: distant stars growing into large suns, mysteriously atmospheric planets, faraway moons and fantastically elaborate nebulae.

_Doctor Watson, you aren't like most humans. You aren't built the same, seeking an easy, anonymous existence of little tragedies and joys. You seek the rush of danger and the razor's edge of mortality. I can give that to you._

His face cramped in a paroxysm of pain and sorrow. _Mary._ He filled his thoughts with memories of her, of blonde hair and blue-green eyes, of softness and tenderness and the promise of a thousand tomorrows just the same. She represented home and forgiveness, and it had been no real hardship to give up the mad chase at Sherlock's side in favor of the richness of his Mary.

Slowly, tenderly, carefully even, the image in his mind – yes, even he was willing to admit it was a bit romanticized – changed. He had buried these memories, but the Counsellor had dragged them back out for him to recall. There had been fights after the honeymoon, extreme fights. He hadn't realized the depths of Mary's debilitating depression, hadn't wanted to face the prognosis and warnings he'd been given by her family. The dopamine of new love had saved her from it all at first, but there was no saving her from the tragic chemical imbalance that made her doubt everything he said of his permanence. She accused him of secretly wanting to rejoin Sherlock, both in his madcap detective work and back at Baker Street, even though he'd pointed out to her repeatedly that the place had been re-let and there was no chance of that happening.

Then – he'd found her ridiculously early that Tuesday morning. There had been no witnesses to her fall, but he knew as soon as he'd rolled her over from where she'd fallen, looking like nothing more than just another vagrant sleeping on the street. The flash of blonde hair, her favorite scarf woven with butterflies, the faraway gaze of her blue-green eyes. His Mary was gone where he couldn't follow.

For about an hour after she'd been loaded into a mortuary truck he'd tried to hold on to hope; after all, Sherlock had taken a very similar fall, had worn the same faraway expression, and he'd come back. But that was Sherlock, and he had been engaged in a war of wits with a madman. Suicide wasn't a part of him. He wasn't meant to be dead, so of course he'd returned. Mary had been courting death since she'd been a teenager.

Besides, locked deep in a pressurized chamber in his mind he'd hidden a secret from himself, a secret that the Counsellor had gently pried out and now showed him: It had been a hardship to trade his life with Sherlock for a life with Mary. Maybe not at first, not when she had been so accommodating when Sherlock had been so difficult, but eventually. He'd had to race home from his work at the surgery to ensure she hadn't cut herself, as she'd taken to doing a week after they'd returned from their honeymoon. She woke him up in the middle of the night, distressed that she was ruining his life. He could say nothing to encourage her, and several nights he'd stayed up and thought about how Sherlock never needed positive reinforcement, how he was confident to a fault – arrogant, some would say. He had missed the cocky idiot, and the guilt over that – the emotional distance from his wife, his increasing regret for having traded everything for her – well. It was probably enough to say he was sure he bore some of the blame for what she'd done.

John finally pulled his hand away and slumped into that same nearby chair. He was silent for a while, simply staring down at his hands where they'd come to rest in his lap. For a miracle, Sherlock and the Counsellor preserved his silence, the former by gazing out the window of this posh new flat and the latter by closing her eyes and, very likely, reading his thoughts as they flowed through his consciousness. He flashed his eyes at each of them, then felt a small smile erupt on his face.

It was just like Sherlock. Bloody _just like Sherlock._

"So what are you proposing?" he asked, wiping tears from his face.

Both faces directed their unsettling gazes at him again. "Move in here," Sherlock said, no politesse, no preamble, no games.

"Sherlock," the Counsellor said, and the tone of her voice reminded John of the way he'd said it once up on a time.

"No, no, it's okay," he said, rushing to Sherlock's defense. "It's nice to hear someone's wishes stated so plainly." He sagged a little, considering his alternatives. He could continue to sleep at Bart's, sneaking into whatever empty patient rooms were available because he couldn't bear to return to the home he'd shared with Mary. He could go back to that home and try to recreate something of a life, even though he knew the family he'd found with her would have nothing to do with him due to his spectacular failure at saving her from herself and her suicide meant there was no money to sustain it. He could try – again – to patch up his relationship with Harry, but she hadn't been any more impressed with his failure than Mary's people. Those were his only other options, really.

Or he could stay here. He could pick up the thread of the life he'd led before and try to figure out how it would work with this Other, this woman who'd supplanted him, replaced him, and yet welcomed him on Sherlock's merits alone.

"Where would I stay?" he asked.

They both grinned. "Oh, just you wait and see," Sherlock said.


	2. Honor Among Thieves

_Sherlock, Torchwood would like to see you. –MH_

_No. Busy. –SH_

_Moving Dr. Watson in? –MH_

_You should get help for your addiction to your surveillance programme. –SH_

_Your wit is falling well short today. –MH_

_What do they want? –SH_

_Requesting your friend's help. Possible alien case. –MH_

_Sorry. We don't take those, Brother Dear. –SH_

_You haven't even asked her. –MH_

_Turn off camera 3. It's intrusive. –SH_

_Your safety is my business. –MH_

_You know full well I'm safe with her. –SH_

_Stop being a prat and come to my office. Captain Harkness is making the request himself. –MH_

_Fine. Car? – SH_

_Will be there in 10 minutes. –MH_

_Of course it will. –SH_

_Bring your doctor if he wants to come. –MH_

* * *

John sat in the back of the extended town car sent by Mycroft's office. He was staring openly at where Sherlock and the Counsellor sat across from him. Their hands were clasped. It was a bit unnerving.

"You're not into physical contact," John said. Was he reminding Sherlock? He wasn't sure. He just felt the need to say something.

Sherlock looked at him, his prismatic eyes now a wash of gray. "Problem?"

"Just saying that it's odd."

"I've never been averse to physical contact when it serves its purpose," Sherlock said.

"And this serves a purpose, does it?"

Sherlock frowned and returned his gaze to the window. Apparently that question wasn't worth a response.

John sat back in his seat. He had already seen and experienced far more today than anybody should be expected to cope with: He'd finally acquiesced to Sherlock's repeated inquiries to meet, he'd suffered the shock of seeing Sherlock with his new partner—this "Counsellor" named Astrid Smith, of all things—he'd gone to the flat they shared and had some sort of cosmic mind-meld thing happen with the aforementioned Counsellor, and he'd stepped into a situation straight out of Narnia when he'd encountered a wardrobe door that led into an impossibly large spaceship complete with – no bollocks – a fully-realized version of the flat at 221B Baker Street. Sherlock had smiled, sharing some joke of "A flat within a spaceship within a flat" and all the nonsense that seemed to include.

John had been distressed to realize that he wanted to loiter at the illusion of Baker Street. He could imagine he was really there, that he hadn't met Mary and her self-destructive madness, that Mrs. Hudson would be popping in with a cheerful "Woo-hoo!" and some tea and biscuits. It was too perfect, and it explained why none of Sherlock's old belongings – the Union Jack pillow, the skull – were in the antiseptic new flat. The _real_ Sherlock was still living at Baker Street.

And yes, _Oh, God, Yes_ John wanted to move back in.

But the nostalgia and the more practical conversations about rent had been aborted in favor of Mycroft's summons. He'd had reservations about it, but John finally let the Counsellor take his hand again and explain to him about Torchwood, UNIT, and Captain Jack Harkness. He'd pulled away as soon as he could.

He glanced down again at the connection between Sherlock and this woman. They were both on the verge of smiling; their eyes were crinkled at the corners. John wondered if they were sharing a joke, and if it was at his expense. And then he thought that he just didn't like this, not at all. Sherlock was an addict with a predilection for mind-altering substances, and John now had firsthand knowledge of the way this woman's method of communication could knife through your head and render you giddy, delirious, and maybe a little high. He wondered if Sherlock was even aware of his dependence, and if he would be able to function without that near-constant contact, without the fix.

He slapped the armrest he was leaning against with his left hand. It would be up to him, he guessed. It always fell to John Watson to put Sherlock Holmes back together again when the case was over, when the intriguing mystery woman let him down, and when the madman's murderous network of accomplices finally did them all the courtesy of dying so Sherlock could come home to people who still didn't understand him.

He turned to find both the Counsellor and Sherlock staring at him.

"So she's reading my thoughts and telling you what I'm thinking – is that how this works?" he asked, his voice full of broken glass.

"No," Sherlock said. "We'd agreed she wouldn't invade your privacy like that unless you want her to. You slapped the car, John."

"Honor among thieves," John scoffed. _Fantastic._

"Am I a thief in this scenario?" the Counsellor asked.

"You steal people's thoughts, so yeah, I get the impression the title is appropriate."

"John." Sherlock sounded weary.

"What, Sherlock?"

"Are you a thief when you see someone sampling a strawberry at a shop?"

"That's different."

"She's using the senses she's been given. We've agreed she will try to block your thoughts and respect your privacy, but that will be as difficult as asking you to walk around blind to someone who will be sharing a flat with you."

"Humans have a right to expect that their thoughts are private," John shot back.

The car came to a stop.

"Guys, come on," the Counsellor said and swung out of the car, Sherlock's hand still grasped firmly in her own. When they were all situated on the street outside Mycroft's office, she looked between the two of them. "Sherlock, John is entitled to his reservations about me. Give him his space. If he ends up trusting me, great. If not, well, we'll figure that out when we get there. But bickering is just noise." She smiled her most serene smile, and a sense of calm filled the air. "The proof of the pudding is in the eating."

Sherlock huffed and led them into Mycroft's office.

* * *

"Counsellor," said the tall American man with the long coat and the dimples. John watched him as he approached them with a confident stride and a wide smile. The Counsellor released Sherlock's hand and threw herself into the man's embrace.

"Jack," she said.

John wondered what this was all about. He hadn't noticed any of this familiarity in her thoughts of this man. He did get the fleeting impression of strangeness from him, though; if he wasn't an "off-world visitor," as she liked to call herself, he was something else, something that belonged in her classification of not-quite-right.

_It's a sham, then_, John decided. She was playing to the room. Whether it was diplomacy or more of that honor among thieves remained to be seen.

"Is Sherlock treating you well?" the man named Jack Harkness asked as he pulled back from the embrace.

"Absolutely. Is this about the Doctor?"

"Well. No need for pleasantries . . .okay." He chuckled, and John realized with a start that he was _flirting_. He was still trying to figure out who was being flirted with when the man turned his attention to him.

"Doctor Watson?" he asked, sticking his hand out in greeting.

"Yes, hi, hello," John stammered, taking the outstretched hand. Happily no thoughts intruded on his own.

"I'm Captain Jack Harkness," he said, then released the handshake. "It's a great pleasure. I've heard such good things about you."

John bit back at least four snarky replies and simply gave him a curt military nod. "And where is Mycroft Holmes?"

"He's excused himself for this meeting. Pressing business with his employer."

"More likely he doesn't want to know what's going on," Sherlock said.

Jack bobbled his head from left to right, a gesture that communicated _Yeah, probably_ quite clearly.

"So what is this about, Captain?" Sherlock asked, smoothly insinuating himself back into the conversation.

"I'm sure you know that we have our eyes on every identified, um, _off-world visitor_ on Earth," Jack said, motioning them all to take a seat at a small conference table in Mycroft's office. "Mainly to protect the Commonwealth from any threats they may unexpectedly present." A couple of nods from Sherlock indicated that Jack could continue, so he did. "We don't generally allow off-world visitors to stay if we think they do present an immediate threat, however; that was part of our original charter, laid down by Queen Victoria herself. So we consider those who we allow to stay as friends, like yourself, Counsellor."

John frowned. She was as apparently soaking up all this flattery. He turned his attention to Sherlock and wondered how much of that was his influence.

"Shall we move the story forward?" Sherlock huffed impatiently.

Jack chuckled. "In time, my friend. Those who stay have proven their friendship, and accordingly we want to encourage them and even protect them, if we can."

"Something happened." The Counsellor narrowed her eyes at Jack. "Several somethings."

Jack nodded. "Somebody's targeting our friends. We have four deaths of a suspicious nature in the past two weeks."

John turned to Sherlock and saw his face light up. Despite his suspicions over all of this business, he couldn't help but respond to that expression.

"Where?" Sherlock asked, all business.

"Two in London, one in Edinburgh, and one in Manhattan."

Sherlock reacted especially strongly to the last. "Manhattan?"

Jack shrugged. "She was on vacation, visiting a friend."

"Are you saying she was tracked – _hunted_ – to Manhattan while on holiday?"

Jack nodded.

Sherlock spun, a grin something like joy on his face. It was always so darkly thrilling, a maneuver that John once thought of as Sherlock's Dance Macabre. Only this time, the dance didn't end with Sherlock catching John up in an entreaty to get started on the first crime scene. No, apparently the dance now ended with Sherlock grabbing the Counsellor's hand, that hand full of cocaine dreams and nicotine nightmares, that addictive contact that Sherlock couldn't be without.

"Yes. Brilliant. Oh, thank you, Captain Harkness," Sherlock said.


	3. The Butterfly Effect

"Why did we have to go to Manhattan first?" John asked as he stood with Sherlock in the console room of the TARDIS. The Counsellor stood nearby, studying the displays and making minute adjustments to the controls. "Is it because it was the most recent murder, and the evidence will be freshest?"

Sherlock shook his head, a small smile on his lips. "No. It's because she wants to show off for you. Remember, this thing travels in space _and_ time. She can take us to any of the crime scenes and have as fresh a corpse as we'd like."

John studied the Counsellor where she stood. Her hair was wilder than usual, and he wondered if she was playing it up so she'd look cool in the heart of New York City. She also was wearing clothing that was clearly an American version of couture: Tight denims, a loose, see-through blouse that he'd heard referred to as a "peasant blouse," and a pair of impractical high-heeled boots that certainly didn't seem like they'd be able to carry her in a sprint. _Somebody should fill her in on how often Sherlock's cases turned into footraces,_ John thought to himself. He thought he should be surprised by the venom of his own snark, but hell, why bother? His thoughts were the only place he could be perfectly honest, and if there really was honor among thieves, then it was really all he had left.

"Why don't we just go back in time to right before the murder, then?" John asked.

"Established timeline," the Counsellor answered, finally feeling some obligation to participate in the conversation. "We can't change events by interfering. It causes rifts, and it's so very rarely worth it."

"We don't have to change anything," John said. "All we have to do is observe, then follow the killer. Right?"

"That still skews the timeline. We're using it to an advantage and changing the future in an inorganic way."

"But aren't you doing that any time you jump in time? You change the future, right?"

She smiled. It wasn't a very patient smile. "You're talking about the Butterfly Effect, aren't you?"

Sherlock sighed. "Boring."

John flashed him his sternest face. "You, hush up." He turned back to the Counsellor. "Are you telling me that you can dash about the universe, back and forth in time, meeting historical figures and inserting yourself into improbable situations, and that's fine – but go back in time and stop a murderer and that's a bad thing?"

She pursed her lips, then nodded. "Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm saying." She noted his flabbergasted expression and sighed, sagging against the nearest wall. She crossed her legs at the ankles, calling attention to those ridiculous boots. "Listen, time can't be understood in a straight line, not even in a series of straight lines. It's not two-dimensional like a line or even three-dimensional like a box. It's fluid, and it's influenced and affected – and even enforced – in multiple directions. One of the things that affects the outcome of time travel is _intention._"

"That's ridiculous," John said.

"John." Sherlock's eyes were quicksilver in their intensity.

"You don't see the inherent hypocrisy here?"

"Frankly, no."

"I don't –"

"John, we're wasting time," Sherlock said.

"We have _all the time in the world_!" John shouted, waving his arms around the space. "Right? Isn't that what this is all about?"

"Do you want to be a part of this investigation or don't you?"

John stared at Sherlock, openly shocked by the question. His stomach dropped to his knees. "I-I can't believe you asked me that."

"I don't want to have to ask you that, but my timeline only moves forward, John. It only goes in one direction. The longer we stand here and argue about the rules of time travel, the less is learned about the killer. You know how I feel about being at the crime scene, and we can get there immediately after the murder and before the local police force arrive to start defiling the scene, but we cannot, _cannot _arrive before."

"I don't understand why not."

"If you would let her touch your hand, she would be able to explain –"

"No."

Sherlock's whole body tensed. "You don't want to understand, then. In the meantime, the criminal is inching towards the next victim in his or her timeline, and we're doing nothing to stop it."

"So I'm uninvited."

"That's up to you," Sherlock said.

"Please decide, Doctor Watson," the Counsellor said mildly. She'd returned to her place at the console. "If you decide to pass on this investigation, that's fine. We're still at the flat. You can get out here and wait for us to return. But we need to get going, with or without you."

John's face burned. Two alternatives, then: Stay behind and feel useless, just as useless as he'd been to stop Mary from taking her fall; or go along and – what?

What was he afraid of? Was he afraid? Or was he just deeply offended by the place this woman had taken at Sherlock's side? He'd walked away from that place himself, after all. What did he expect, that the spot would always be reserved for him?

Sherlock was staring at him, impatient as ever. Everything was on hold – for him, for John Watson. Sherlock _had_ reserved a spot for him. It was up to him to take it.

"Fine. Let's go."

Sherlock let out a breath John hadn't been aware he'd been holding and gave John a huge grin. It was glorious to see, and for the first time in a long time John Watson felt the thrill of the chase.

"The game, Counsellor, is on!" Sherlock cried triumphantly as the woman let out a brief hoot of joy and slammed a lever forward.

* * *

John stepped out of the TARDIS, disoriented and still trying to be skeptical. He looked behind him. The structure that had been a wardrobe in a spare bedroom in a flat in London now appeared to be –

"A food service trailer?" he asked. Sherlock had explained the concept of the chameleon circuit, but it was extremely disturbing to see its effects firsthand. The structure was indeed a white food service trailer, the wheels blocked, the service window shuttered, and the menu board stating nothing more than _CLOSED – please call tomorrow._ The name of the trailer was _Astrid's Caramel Apples._

Sherlock shrugged. "You get used to it."

"Did you?"

Sherlock let out one of his low rumbling chuckles. "No." He turned back to the TARDIS and noted the name. "Astrid's Caramel Apples?"

The Counsellor groaned as she stepped down from the trailer. "Ugh. No."

"I might have to loiter long enough to find out if they're worth a damn, Counsellor," Sherlock joked.

John smiled. Now _that_ was nice, the thought that the joking could go both ways.

"There will be no apples for you, sir."

"What about for me?" John asked.

Sherlock flashed him a startled glance. "Are you . . .you're _flirting._"

John flushed. "I am not."

"Boys," the Counsellor said, grabbing them both by the sleeves. "Let's discuss the merits and drawbacks of flirting later. Crime scene is this way." She led them a few steps by the sleeves and released them as they rounded a corner onto a busier street.

Well, _the_ busier street. John found himself in the bustling heart of Time Square. There was no denying where he was; somehow, by alien technology or, perhaps, by some miracle, he'd been transported from the heart of London to the heart of Manhattan. He felt a smile of wonder spread on his face, and he turned back to share his wonder with his companions.

They stood side-by-side, their hands clasped, their attention on the scene around them, not him.

John's mood fell. Yes, maybe he'd warmed to her a little, just a _very little_, but the handholding? He still didn't think that was healthy, not with Sherlock's history.

Then she held her hand out to him. An offer. He recognized the gesture for what it was. He could decline and she wouldn't be offended – that was clear from the expression on her face. Or he could step forward, take her hand, and participate in whatever madness she was sharing with Sherlock.

He frowned. Still no. He had the composure to hope that this action didn't poison future opportunities – after all, it was possible that one day, he'd take that offered hand – but right now he couldn't believe that any of this could be healthy.

She shrugged, then tugged at Sherlock's hand. "This way, gents," she said, leading them down another alley and away from the noise and the thrum of Time Square.


	4. The Tullarian Model

John watched as Sherlock knelt over the dead body. The lighting wasn't ideal – nothing more than security lamps ringing the empty dampness of the alley – but he knew first-hand that Sherlock didn't necessarily need a lot of light to see things other people missed. Sure enough, he initiated the examination by running a gloved hand quickly down the body, searching by touch for any accessories that might have been stashed in pockets or buried in bags.

In the past, John would not have hesitated to crouch down beside Sherlock, divining what he could about cause of death and rate of decay – but he hesitated. He shot his eyes over to the Counsellor. She was browsing through her mobile like any other idle, fashionable young woman might while she waited for something tedious to be concluded.

"Are you bored?" John asked, recognizing the impertinence and apparently not giving a damn.

"Nope," she said brightly, popping the P. "Browsing the Torchwood files on the victim. Captain Harkness sent them to me as an encrypted e-mail attachment. Thought they would help."

Sherlock sighed heavily from where he knelt. John looked over at his friend and saw that the detective was annoyed. "John, come join me."

He did as he was bid, and as soon as he was on the same level as Sherlock, he heard that low voice, efficient as ever, rumbling in his ear. "I'm still trying to deduce the exact cause of your behavior, John, but whether it's lingering malaise over your loss or some sort of misplaced jealousy towards the Counsellor, I'd like to remind you that the Work is as it ever was. It would be helpful if you could focus."

"You're missing a probable cause, Sherlock."

"Doubtful." Sherlock flashed him a brief smile, then resumed his examination. "Notepad ready?"

John started, then nodded, fishing his trusty old black notebook and pen from his breast pocket. "Go."

"Victim appears to be a very young person between sixteen and nineteen years of age, dark-skinned, affluent going by her bespoke designer clothing. Could be in the fashion industry, a model or the like." He looked up from his recitation. "Counsellor?"

"Yes," she said. "She's a Tullarian, a humanoid from Tullari, a class M planet in the Lyra constellation." She smiled down at the corpse fondly. "Nice people, very peaceful. According to Torchwood, she established her alibi as an ambassadorship. She set herself up in a posh flat in London and yes, Sherlock, she did some modeling. She was in Manhattan visiting another Tullarian ambassador."

John redirected his attention to the body in front of him. "Counsellor, you have two hearts and enhanced blood. Do these people have any biological variances from Human that I should know about?"

He could almost feel Sherlock's smile.

"The Tullarians have a lower resting heart rate and body temperature. They tolerate cold much better than Earthlings; Tullari is about thirty degrees Fahrenheit colder at all times than Earth. Apart from that, no, no significant differences."

John put away his notebook and leaned further down to the corpse. The deep brown eyes were open and staring. The mouth was open and the tongue was partially extended. John pressed his right hand to the throat.

"There's something here," he said. "Should I try to extract it?"

"No need," the Counsellor said. She pulled up the autopsy report. "She choked to death on a bit of apple."

Sherlock sat back on his heels and pressed his fingertips together at his chin. He cut his eyes to the Counsellor. "Enemies?"

She paged through her mobile. "Nothing in the file. From all indications, she was a very happy person with a wide circle of friends." She put her mobile to sleep and looked up to catch John's eyes. "Plus, the Tullarians have their own method of defense."

"That would be?"

"They're poisonous."

"That would be a variance you could have included with the summary about body temperature," John said, pulling his hand away from the corpse.

She smiled wolfishly. "The poison is only activated when they're in danger, and it is transmitted in one of three ways: bite, scratch, or spit. You're fine, Doctor."

Sherlock stood. "So she was fed an apple while her guard was down and – what, choked on it?" He turned a full circle. "Why would she have come down this alley?" He shook his head. "It didn't happen here. She was _placed_."

John took a step back and saw the scene again. Her placement had been masterful; it certainly was believable that she'd fallen onto the pavement, clawing at her throat. "How can you tell?" he asked. He didn't doubt Sherlock, but there was something about watching the genius in action that was thrilling, and that thrill – well, right now it would be extremely reassuring.

"The area around the body," Sherlock said, pointing to the gritty asphalt. "There's no sign of her clothing on it. If you're choking to death, you'll roll, struggling against the obstruction in your throat. Her clothing is tailor-made, as I've said, and made of very fine cotton and linen. A trace of that evidence should be on this rough pavement. It isn't."

"Brilliant," John said in his old helpless way.

"So where did she die, then?" Sherlock asked. John knew it was rhetorical, just a flow of words to get his mind moving. He paced like a caged tiger, searching for sign. "I need more light!" he groused.

The Counsellor sighed. John watched as she woke her mobile and punched a few buttons. Then she pointed with her left hand at the security lights ringing the alleyway. The ring on her index finger glowed and emitted a high, thin thrumming sound. The lights intensified. John winced from the increased light.

Sherlock grinned. "Thank you."

"That's all you get, and you'd better hurry. Somebody will notice."

No protest came. Sherlock immediately strode around the alley. "Drag marks, tire tracks, something," he muttered, his kaleidoscopic eyes missing nothing. "Oh, come now. What, did she drop from the sky?" His eyes snapped up. "Oh."

John recognized that thunderstruck expression. "What've you got?"

"Humans are sloppy," Sherlock murmured, again on the move, prowling around the scene. "I can see and track human sign, the things they leave behind. This isn't the work of humans, is it, Counsellor?"

She shook her head. "Probably not, but we have to know how she got here."

"Tractor beam!" Sherlock said, joy and confidence transmitting through his smile. The Counsellor's responding expression made his own melt. "Come on. Tractor beam! That has to be it."

She shook her head. "Tractor beams leave sign, too, Sherlock. The surrounding area would be clear of particulates – pebbles, gum wrappers, all of that, it would all be blown out of the way or sucked up. Further, some of it would have been in her hair, her clothes. Tractors are messy."

"Transporter." John blinked. Had he just said that?

He could feel both sets of eyes on him. He blinked again. "What? Are those not real?" His eyes moved from one blank face to the other. Had he said something remarkably stupid? "Like Star Trek. Transporters?"

Finally the Counsellor's mask cracked. Her smile was glorious, simply glorious, and John felt his knees ripple a little. _Oh, come on_! he thought, frustrated by his thoroughly male response to her inescapable attractiveness.

"Of course. Transporters – matter reconstruction," she said, turning to Sherlock. "Brilliant. You were right about Doctor Watson. He's absolutely brilliant."

John flushed. "I'm – what?"

Sherlock didn't acknowledge what she'd said about John's brilliance, but he wasn't busy denying it, either. "Counsellor, we need to know how many alien technologies are capable of this – what did you call it – matter reconstruction. How quickly can we have this information?" He looked around himself again. "You can turn down the lights now."

She pointed at the security lamps and her ring shrieked and pulsed, softening the lights to their original intensity. "We can have it almost instantly once we get back to the TARDIS."

"Come on!" Sherlock cried, turning away from the corpse in the alleyway and heading back into the thick of Time Square.

"But – the body!" John said. It seemed so sad and forlorn lying there, alone, the remains of what had once been a happy, beautiful girl from another world. He'd never just left a body like this; Lestrade and the Yarders were an often incompetent but somehow reassuring presence, the implied promise that the body would eventually find its way home like a safety net.

Before he was able to register what was happening, his hand was seized by the Counsellor's own, and her voice rang clear in his mind. _Torchwood will be along, Doctor. She's not abandoned and she's not forgotten, but we have to try to stop this from happening again._

He looked into her face and saw her overriding concern. For the first time since he'd met her, he didn't mind so much having her mind linked to his. _She's so alone._

_Yes, I know. At the very end, we're all alone._ There was nobility in what she was thinking, and he could sense that. _Let's give her the last private moment she'll ever have, John._

He hadn't seen it that way – privacy. Even in a morgue she wouldn't have that privacy. He stood and slipped his hand away from hers. Together they followed Sherlock out of the alley. John noted that the Counsellor's boots didn't actually impede her stride at all.


	5. Her Secret

John followed Sherlock and the Counsellor back into the TARDIS. He looked around, wide-eyed, as the Counsellor ran directly to the console and started manipulating switches. She flashed him a look filled with annoyance. "Doctor Watson, please close the door firmly behind you."

"Oh! Right." He turned back and pulled the door to, then glanced around again. Sherlock was impatiently hovering over the Counsellor's shoulder. The strange bronze light at the center of the console was pulsing. "Where are we going?"

"I need that information, Counsellor," Sherlock said.

"Yeah, yeah," she said. "Two minutes."

John reached into his pocket and smiled. "Want one?" he asked.

Sherlock spun on him. "What? Want what?"

John pulled out a nicotine patch, still secure in its blister pack. He waved it at the detective the way a matador waves a cape at a mad bull.

Sherlock snarled, his eyes flashing. "Give me that."

John pulled it away just long enough to say "Behave," but he knew it was a weak protest at best. The man was so tall and his limbs were so long. It was rather like trying to keep a giraffe at bay. Sherlock snatched the packet and ripped it away from his once-and-current flatmate with a snarl.

"Are you encouraging his nicotine habit, Doctor?" the Counsellor asked as she collected some printouts from a paper tray.

John felt some frail thread of restraint snap inside him. He turned on her. "You're one to talk."

She had turned to the two of them, papers held loosely in her hand. Her face froze. "Excuse me?"

"John –" Sherlock began, but he was cut off by the violence of John's recoil.

"No. You will listen, Sherlock. You will listen to everything I have to say right now."

"And _right now_ is the proper time to do this, is it?" Sherlock asked.

"Why not?" the Counsellor asked. "I've already sent us back to the flat. We're safe. So let's have it out, Doctor. What the hell is your problem?"

"That!" John said. He didn't think they were even aware they were doing it, but they were clutching at each other's hands again. "You're like co-dependent children!"

Sherlock's mouth opened, but he closed it again, storms of fury brewing in his eyes.

"Co-dependent?" the Counsellor asked. "Are you saying –"

"You're a pair of addicts, that's what I'm saying," John said, crossing his arms over his chest. "I've felt what it's like to have you in my mind, reading my thoughts and feeding me yours. I've seen your visions. Counsellor, it feels very much like a hallucination, some sort of drug. Are you aware of Sherlock's history?"

"John." Sherlock's voice was a pure, angry warning.

The Counsellor looked at Sherlock, and John saw something so wholly unexpected that it wicked a great deal of his anger away – it was sadness and fear and a very vulnerable form of anxiety. Sherlock snapped his eyes to her, and they regarded each other for a moment, the pure honesty of two people who can't hide their thoughts vibrating between them. Finally the Counsellor nodded. "But softly, Sherlock, please."

Sherlock's eyes returned to John. "Yes, I'm an addict. Does it surprise you to hear me admit it? I've turned to a wide array of substances to take the edge off my emotions, to steady me, and to help me think. I happen to be one of the few people on Earth who can pre-meditate the need, self-prescribe, and handle whatever I put in my body, but yes, from time to time I develop a . . .fixation. Most of the time I can handle it and abstain. Sometimes – and it's less and less often – but sometimes I can't handle it.

"But John, this thing –" Sherlock held up where he and the Counsellor were joined, hand-in-hand, "_this_ isn't weakness. It's strength. It helps me to know what she thinks, to know that she's not hiding her thoughts behind an artifice of politic and manipulation. She is just _Her_, and she trusts me, believes in me." Sherlock slipped his hand free and approached John carefully, like he was approaching a wounded cat. "I didn't even know I needed that . . .before I met you."

John stepped back, thunderstruck.

Sherlock continued. "You saw what people thought of me. You saw me every day, saw how I lived and worked, and you still wanted to be my friend. Even after that business with Moriarty, you carried on believing in me. Idiot." His smile was unexpectedly warm.

"Alright, alright, don't get carried away," John said. "You always get carried away."

"I do not." Sherlock cleared his throat. "And I don't believe you've ever had a hallucinogenic drug in your life."

John's jaw dropped. "What?"

"Sherlock." The Counsellor shook her head at him.

"Problem?"

"You were doing so well."

"Not good?" Sherlock may have been aiming for innocence, but his tone and demeanor actually smacked of arrogance.

She shook her head. "Doctor Watson, if I thought that any of my actions since I met Sherlock harmed him, I would have abstained."

"What's in it for you?" he asked her.

She cocked her head at him. "What was in it for you?"

"This isn't about me."

"It's more about you than you want to let on."

"I don't –"

"Stop!" She pulled her hand away from Sherlock and moved quickly, striding directly into John's personal space. She didn't reach out for him, she only glared into his face. "Stop deflecting all of your stress and displacing all of your grief into this great project to save Sherlock from me. You're trying so hard to be the hero in this so that you can swallow your shame over your wife's death. Just – stop it." She took a step back, dazed.

John also took a step back. His mind was reeling, and once again he felt that raw, keening place in his heart open up. _Mary_. Mary in her wedding dress, rosy-cheeked and smiling up at him adoringly. Mary on their honeymoon, skin slowly bronzing in the Caribbean sun. Mary bringing him tea, cooking him breakfast, sharing her fears across the downy expanse of a moonlit pillow in the middle of the night. His knees unhinged and he fell to the floor of the TARDIS. His face collapsed. He gazed around him at the strange space, at the faces – one familiar, one truly alien – and he gave in.

"Please," he gasped, reaching out for purchase. He was awash in grief, completely at sea and without any means of salvation. Had he truly never wept? He didn't feel tears coming now, only a deep-seated psychological horror, a fear of his own reflection in the great Mirror of Truth: No. He wasn't a hero. He wasn't a good man. He'd been selfish and turned away from the person who needed him most, pulled his heart away from her in favor of nostalgia over Baker Street and all the adventures he'd had there. He'd had no right to pursue a normal life; after all, he was a battle-scarred war veteran who craved the adrenaline high. Had he really thought he could sit on a pedestal and rain scorn down on these two? He was just as bad an addict – no, worse. His addiction, his craving for a fix, had killed a beautiful woman who'd looked to him for salvation.

His hand was taken, gently, very gently. He screwed his eyes shut. _Please_, he whispered in the tortured hell of his mind. _I can't bear it._

_I'm sorry._ The Counsellor's mental voice was full of remorse. _John, I'm so sorry._ She wasn't feeding him any images, no hallucinatory films – only blankness, a void into which he could escape from the boiling madness of his guilt.

_No. You were right. _

_I had no right to say those things. Everyone grieves in their own way, at their own speed. On my world, we had a process for grief._ The blackness behind his eyes swirled to gray, and words materialized from the fog: _Give yourself time to reflect. Give yourself permission to feel what needs to be felt. Be brave. Be private. And in all things, be honest._

_You went through this yourself, did you?_ He asked, not unkindly. _With your husband._

She nodded. He could feel it down the length of her arm, straight into the connection with her hand. _Yes. He left me. I – I'm still going through it._

He gasped, because now he could see images, just flashes, memories burbling through her subconscious. He got the sense that she hadn't intended to share these things with him – after all, one of the rules she'd just shared with him was _be private_ – but the images came nonetheless. He saw her as another woman, tawny-haired and bronze-eyed, bent on revenge. He saw how she'd bitten back the revenge during her regeneration; she wanted to be a better person, a better friend to Sherlock, but her secret –

Ah, there it was. A secret. She still wanted her revenge. She still had a score to settle with the Doctor, whoever that was, and she wasn't sure if she'd be able to keep herself from her vengeance if . . ._when_ she saw him again.

The connection was severed abruptly as she pulled her hand away. He wrenched his eyes open and stared at her. She blinked owlishly at him, her pupils huge, and for just a moment he thought her irises were the same shade of blue as his own. He looked around the TARDIS and saw that the door to the Phantom Baker Street stood open. Sherlock had escaped the drama, then. Typical.

"Counsellor –"

"Don't." She got up from where she'd been crouched on the floor beside him. "Please. For me. Don't."

"Wait." He got up and restrained her, grasping her elbow in his hand. "No, I won't tell him."

She relaxed. "He needs us, you know."

"Yes, I know, but Counsellor," John said, speaking gently as he would to a spooked cat, "I think . . .I think I need you." He realized how strong that statement was, and he swallowed around the lump in his throat. "I need you to help me clear the blockages. In my mind."

She smiled, then nodded. "It would be an honor, Doctor Watson."

"Please, call me John."


	6. A Good Old-Fashioned Villain

John and the Counsellor found Sherlock in the Phantom Baker Street, spreading profiles across his desk. He paid them no mind as they came into the sitting room; he only reshuffled the profiles, trying to form some sort of pattern.

"So what's this then?" John asked as he came to stand beside Sherlock.

If there was any residual tension from the console room of the TARDIS, Sherlock wasn't of the mind to acknowledge it. "These are the profiles of the species capable of matter reconstruction." He frowned, then swapped two profiles.

John looked over the data: each page contained a photo of a "typical" member of the species, then a long series of numbers – coordinates, he guessed – then data on known antagonists and whether or not the species was aggressive, and to what degree. There were a dozen profiles on the desk. "All of these species have transporters?"

The Counsellor fell into place beside him. "Mm. No two transporters are the same operationally, but it's all essentially the same outcome: disassemble something here, reassemble it somewhere else. I only drew up the profiles for species who can do that without disturbing the destination environment. Naturally, there may be new science out there – you know, a species that recently picked up the ability and hasn't disclosed it yet – but this data is correct as of Earth year AD nineteen seventy one."

John snapped his neck over to look at the Counsellor in shock. "That was over forty years ago."

She shrugged and avoided his eye. "Yes, well, updating databases is time-intensive work."

"But forty years?"

Sherlock cut them both off. "Counsellor, I need profiles and photos of the other victims. I want to know where they're from, what they were doing here, where they died, and what they were wearing when they died. Hobbies, friends, that sort of thing."

"Yes." She didn't hesitate, only made her way out of the sitting room and down the stairs to the "street."

"Hold on," John said, fishing his notebook out of his breast pocket and reviewing his notes. "The Counsellor said the Torchwood files mentioned another Tullarian ambassador. Do you think that might be important?"

Sherlock frowned. "I doubt it. The Tullarians aren't one of the profiles here; they don't have transporter technology."

"But they might have acquired it the same way Torchwood gets all of its equipment."

"Scavenging," Sherlock said. "Intriguing possibility, but the Counsellor seemed pretty clear that, not only are they a peaceful people, but this particular Tullarian had no enemies. No, I think there's a pattern. Once we get the victims' profiles, it might become clearer."

The Counsellor returned just a few moments later, but for John they were very tense moments. If he had been standing next to anyone else, he'd have rushed in to fill the silence with apologies for his behavior – but this was Sherlock Holmes. Emotional outbursts were best employed as a way to manipulate suspects; they had no place in this friendship. John hadn't indulged in one since the day Sherlock returned from the dead.

"Here," she said, handing the victims' profiles to Sherlock. He nodded and strode to the sofa and busied himself attaching the profiles in no seeming order to the wall. John felt a second wave of nearly-nauseating emotion, a fulfilled nostalgia that nearly incapacitated him. He steadied himself against the arm of the sofa and held on. In an effort to reorient himself, he stared into the pretty face of the Tullarian model; the profile included a glossy portfolio portrait. Her smile was radiant, wide, and perfectly honest.

"She looked so happy," he commented, knowing even now that Sherlock would dismiss the comment as little more than useless sentiment.

The Counsellor wasn't exactly Sherlock. She hummed in assent. "Unlike these others."

John scanned the other victims' faces. She was right; there wasn't a smile to be had among them.

The Counsellor began her recitation. "First victim, Cloomskillian, mid-fifties, found in a _rubbish tip_ near a port-of-trade office on the Thames. Was employed as a security worker for a nearby precious gems wholesaler; was really here for sanctuary, to get away from an oppressive and, if the records are to be believed, abusive family situation on Cloomskillia." John leaned in and studied the face of the Cloomskillian: long, drawn, dour, and something about the eyes made him think the creature didn't spare anyone the nasty attitude he'd developed.

Sherlock was studying the crime scene photos. Whoever Torchwood employed for the task knew their business. "Again, no particulates, no obvious drag marks. Matter reconstruction, then."

The Counsellor moved on to the next profile. "Second victim, Mirsanese from the planet Alaria. She was found stretched out on a mattress in a shop in central London; frankly it was a bit of a miracle that Torchwood got to the scene before the Yarders."

"A mattress?" Sherlock asked.

"Yes, a mattress shop. She worked there. Well, as a day thing. I guess as a full-time thing; she didn't have any practical reasons to be on Earth, just found it restful."

"Holidays?" John asked.

"Something like that. Don't understand it, really; Alaria is a lovely place. The nights are much shorter, though. Maybe the lady really, _really_ liked her sleep."

Something tickled the back of John's brain, some emerging pattern. He leaned in, staring at the woman's profile. She certainly did look like she enjoyed her sleep; her face was serene, rounded by fat – after all, how much exercise does a hard sleeper get? – and graced by the faintest smile.

He glanced over at Sherlock, wondering if the genius was two steps ahead of him and had already pinned down the pattern. _No, not yet_, but he was enraptured, lost in the hunt. "Next?"

"Our Scottish victim," the Counsellor said. "A visitor from Phark, an odd planet full of arrogant creatures that like to call themselves Star Masters." John flashed his eyes over to the Counsellor, who clearly did not find this moniker amusing. He looked back to the photo of the "Star Master" and didn't think the word fit him at all; he was obviously shy of cameras, if not of all people. His body language was clear: curled in on himself, eyes averted, chin tucked. _Leave me alone, please._ "This one was found under a bridge in Edinburgh. No regular job; made a scant living writing relatively good poetry and selling it online under a pen name. Was here as an exile. Apparently nobody on his home planet could stand him."

Sherlock froze. "Counsellor – you haven't mentioned method of death for any of them."

She grinned. "I thought you'd want me to save the best for last. They all choked to death on apples."

It hit both John and Sherlock at the same time. Their gazes locked, and it was that – the flash of understanding between them – that sent John back in time faster than anything else had yet. Sherlock grinned, then pulled a black marker out of his pocket, uncapped it, and began to write directly over each of the faces.

_HAPPY._

_GRUMPY._

_SLEEPY._

_BASHFUL._

The Counsellor looked stunned. "What's that?" she asked.

John smiled. "Sometimes I forget you aren't from around here."

"Snow White. It's a fairy tale – a morality fable here on Earth. Pretty famous due to a Disney adaptation from the, what, John, nineteen thirties?"

John nodded. There was no way he could be expected to keep all that sorted in his head.

"I need more information," the Counsellor said.

Sherlock sighed impatiently, then held out his hand. The Counsellor cast her eyes at John and seized his hand in hers. _I'm going to build trust with you, John, even if I have to steal it._ Then she took Sherlock's offered hand.

The bridge between them was like a sensory overload at first: three chattering minds.

_Hush_, said the Counsellor. _Think of it as a conference call. Sherlock, tell me about this fairy tale._

Sherlock hurriedly flashed images of Disney's Snow White and the barebones of the story: the Evil Queen, the Huntsman, the escape, and the Seven Dwarfs with their odd little names who took in the princess and hid her. He skipped around the story with the prince (of course) and went straight for the happy ending, when the choking bit of apple dislodged from Snow White's throat and she was revived from the dead.

_Sherlock, the apple wasn't dislodged. He just miraculously woke her with a kiss._

_John, don't interrupt._

_This is important, isn't it? The Disney version doesn't have that bit. She isn't _nearly_ dead, she's fully dead. Poison._

Sherlock pulled his hand away. He was clearly agitated; he paced, only occasionally looking at the profiles on the wall.

"What's wrong?" the Counsellor asked.

"Don't try to analyze me!" Sherlock suddenly cried, rounding on them both. He took another desperate look at the wall, then stormed off to his bedroom.

John groaned. _Oh God._

The Counsellor turned to him, probably sensing his change in mood. "What is it?"

John sighed. He guessed there would be some things he'd never be allowed to forget. He gave her a bitter smile and said, "Every fairy tale needs a good old-fashioned villain."


	7. Get Sherlock

"We should go in there and check on him."

"No," the Counsellor said, crossing her arms over herself. "Remember that deal about not reading your thoughts?"

"The one you've violated at least twice now?" John asked, feeling his lips quirk in a hollow smile.

She blushed prettily. "Yeah, that one."

He shrugged. "So?"

"When he retreats like that, I do everything I can to block him out. He's got a very effective shield of his own, but it doesn't work when he's upset."

"Shield?"

She snorted in a very unladylike manner. "He calls it his Mind Palace."

John's jaw dropped into a delighted gape. "You mean it serves a purpose beyond making him into a profoundly antisocial nutter?"

This time she gave more vent to her amusement, letting out a charming laugh that reminded John of mixed wind chimes, both wood and steel. "Yeah, you could say that." She motioned towards Sherlock's closed bedroom door with a halfhearted wave. "But when he's too wound up to go to his Mind Palace, he shuts the door between us. I turn it off. Well, as much as I can."

"Privacy."

She nodded, favoring him again with those too-familiar blue eyes. "I do understand and value the concept, John." She shrugged. "When your emotions run high, it's like you're _screaming_ your thoughts at me, and sometimes I can't help but hear them. Most of the time, though, I can afford you your privacy. That's what I'm doing for him now."

John nodded. "That's good of you."

"But can you tell me why he's so disturbed? Do you know?"

"Hasn't he told you?"

"About what?"

John swallowed. Recalling the events leading up to one of the most painful chapters in his life wasn't going to be easy, and knowing that Sherlock had shared thoughts with the Counsellor made him wonder if it truly was necessary. "Moriarty. The Fall. The case leading up to the Fall."

She shuddered. Ah, so she _had_ seen something about the incident. Then she did something that John didn't understand at all: She gave him a look, a hopeless, lost, forlorn look. She turned away. "Yeah, I saw the Fall and what followed – but I don't know anything about the case. Can you tell me?"

"Are you asking me to hold your hand and tell you that way?"

"Problem?" Her tone of voice was so familiar he let out an involuntary bark of laughter.

"How do I know you aren't doing any reverse data collection . . .you know, during?"

She moved closer to him, then moved away, a teasing smirk on her face. "You don't. In fact, it's almost guaranteed I'll have access to all of your memories, thoughts, and even those steamy fantasies you'd rather nobody knew about."

Something warm and fluid trickled down John's spine. He was pretty sure he was being flirted with, but he thought it would be wise to be sure. "Are you . . ._flirting_ with me, Counsellor?"

She drifted closer again. "Yeah."

"Sherlock told me not to try anything with you."

"Probably still a good idea."

"So then why –"

She shrugged and turned away, but not before he could see scarlet stains on her cheeks. "Right. Erm. Sorry. Forget it."

_Sod that._ But he didn't want to scare her away, either. "And you're saying you and Sherlock don't –"

"No!"

"Why not?"

She stared at him like he was growing wings. "Are you new?"

"What? You're clearly devoted to each other."

"And that always has to lead to sex, huh?"

John frowned. What _was_ he getting at, anyway? "I'm just trying to understand."

"We're _friends,_ John. Very, very good friends, the kind you two once were before everything went – how do you Brits say it? – pear-shaped."

"Before I left, you mean."

She shook her head. "I am not going to do that again."

John shivered and lowered his head. "I deserve it."

"No."

"I'm not –"

Neither of them heard a door open, but they both heard it slam shut. "Can you spare me the histrionics?" Sherlock asked, his voice thick. "I've a text from Lestrade."

* * *

They decided to ride the TARDIS straight to the front door of the Met and emerged to find that the TARDIS had assumed the form of an unoccupied access kiosk, complete with an elevated blockade arm and situated next to a walkway marked _VISITORS_. They heard the Counsellor's phone chime as they strode quickly for the door. Sherlock glanced over, already on the phone with Lestrade.

John was keeping pace beside her as she checked the message. She winced and turned the screen to John so he could read it:

_Alien. Secure scene. MI5 on the way. No forensics from the Yard. Confirm. –Harkness_

The Counsellor typed out her reply, her lips pressed into a grim line, then seized Sherlock's sleeve. She tugged the leather glove off his left hand and meshed her fingers into his. He shifted his eyes to her, nodded, then resumed his conversation with Lestrade:

"Listen, you need to make sure neither Anderson nor any of the others lays a finger on that crime scene. All photos are to be confiscated and destroyed. National security, do you understand? Torchwood is on the way."

John's pulse seemed to be vibrating from the outside of his skin. _Another alien, dead. The timeline moves forward, no matter how far in the past or future we move to try to escape it. I'm starting to understand._

The three of them entered through the Visitors entrance and were greeted by Sally Donovan. Donovan wasn't the most pleasant of people under the best circumstances, but her expression visibly darkened when she saw the Counsellor. For her part, the Counsellor seemed disappointed that they had been greeted by someone so inferior.

John smirked. It reminded him altogether of Sherlock.

Donovan stammered for a moment before finally huffing in frustration, turning on a heel, and stomping off, obviously expecting them to follow.

"Something happened, did it?" John asked the Counsellor as they moved quickly through the Yard.

"Maybe I said some things she needed to hear, once," she said.

It obviously wasn't a fascinating topic to her, but John was enraptured. "You. You told off _Sergeant Sally Donovan._"

The Counsellor barely reacted, but she allowed the slightest of smiles before clipping on her indifferent mask and sweeping into Lestrade's office.

"Ah, there you are," DI Lestrade said, stepping around his desk. "John, welcome back."

"I, ah –"

"Where's the body?" Sherlock said, cutting off John's stammering gratitude for the welcome.

Lestrade headed for the door of his office. "This way."

They were led to a conference room, floodlit with klieg lamps and cordoned off to dissuade the office gawkers. The body was front and center, laid out on her back, her arms spread beside her in a cruciform. Her eyes were wide open and staring, her mouth open, a blue tongue protruding past dry lips. Pinned to the front of her blouse was a white page of paper with two words printed in black marker:

_GET SHERLOCK_

There was even a smiley face in the O.

"That answers why you called us," John said to Lestrade _sotto voce._

"John, those words," Lestrade whispered before he was cut off by Sherlock's booming baritone.

"Her nose," Sherlock said, pointing at the inflamed and abraded skin there. "Is that a rash? John?"

John looked over at the Counsellor, who turned to Lestrade. "Get your people out of here. You can stay, but you have to adhere to the Torchwood Confidentiality Statement."

Lestrade's lips disappeared into a tense line. He nodded once. "Donovan, get everyone out of here."

"Films, digital captures, all of it," the Counsellor said, on the surface to no one in particular, but it quickly became clear the statement was made for Donovan's benefit. "Make sure they're destroyed or you're answering to MI5."

"Really?" Donovan asked, staring holes into Lestrade.

"Out of my hands."

She rolled her eyes and stalked away.

"Close the door firmly," the Counsellor said, then turned back to John. "Judging by her eyes, I'd say she's a Vuennin," she said, stepping closer to the body and gazing into the face. "I'm sure Harkness will back me up on that. Vuennins were advised _ages_ ago not to visit Earth due to their well-documented allergic reaction to the spore released by the flora here. Curious why this one decided to chance it."

John accepted a pair of nylon gloves from Lestrade and smiled. "Hay fever? Our friend here has hay fever?"

The Counsellor nodded. Sherlock cleared his throat impatiently. John bent forward over the woman's face. He studied the eyes and understood what the Counsellor meant immediately. The irises were blood red, and the pupils were shaped like six-pointed stars. Shredded remnants of contact lenses clung to the corners.

"What happened to the contacts?" John asked.

"Hard to find contacts that resist the acidic nature of Vuennin tears," the Counsellor answered simply.

John nodded, hoping that she hadn't omitted any other crucial information about poisonous emissions, then performed a brief examination. He felt the obstruction in the throat right away, then moved on to check for other odd presentations. Meanwhile Sherlock was grilling Lestrade:

"What time was she found?"

"Ten minutes before I texted you. Cleaning service. We haven't used this conference room in months, but it's cleaned daily."

"Have you taken the statements of the service?"

"Yes. They have heavy Baltic accents, but it's clear they didn't see anyone drag the body in here."

Sherlock nodded impatiently. "John, how long here?"

John took note of the progress of _rigor mortis_ and the way the blood was settling at the bottom of the body. "Two hours at most, more likely –"

"Forty five minutes," Sherlock finished.

"Why do you ask me if you already know?"

Sherlock was making it a point to not look at the body again, and that was profoundly disturbing to John. There were times Sherlock's fascination with death bordered on necrophilia. To top it off, this was an _alien_ corpse, one that hadn't yet been touched by Torchwood. This would have been Sherlock's pipe dream, once.

But that note . . .

_GET SHERLOCK_

And the fairy tale theme. It was dangerously familiar.

He reached back and took two of the Counsellor's fingers in his grip. _Make sure he's okay, please._

Her thoughts buzzed, indistinct. He looked down at her fingers. She was trying to slip more of her hand into his, but he smiled at her and pulled away. She frowned at him. John's smile grew wider.

Lestrade cleared his throat. John and the Counsellor looked up at him. He was smirking at them. John flushed.

The Counsellor grunted and headed over to where Sherlock had withdrawn into a far corner out of the glare of the lights. John watched carefully as she approached him, her hands held out, offering him her mind. Sherlock sighed, slumped, and reached for her.

It seemed almost too intimate for an audience. John turned to Lestrade. "Greg, Torchwood will be here any minute –"

"What the hell is going on here?" Lestrade asked, looking at John like he didn't know him.

"What do you mean?"

"Detective Inspector."

John and Lestrade looked up to find Captain Jack Harkness's form filling the door to the conference room. Two men loomed behind him, carrying packs and odd-looking weapons.

"Get out?" Lestrade guessed.

Jack grinned. "Thanks."


	8. Look At Us Both

John woke up gasping. He bolted out of bed and pressed himself against the door to his bedroom at the Phantom Baker Street. The moon slanted through the small window, giving everything a ghostly glow, but he knew it wasn't real. None of this was real. It was raining in the _real_ London, enough to where the moon wouldn't shine, that much he knew.

_Why am I staying here?_ He asked himself, but he knew the answer well enough. He felt safe in this artificial construct. It was familiar; it was what he'd wanted just a short while ago, back when he was busy betraying his wife in favor of missing his crazy sociopathic flatmate. Even so, this seemed . . .wrong, somehow. Borrowed comfort.

He sighed and sagged against the door. His thoughts turned to that sociopath. Why did Sherlock insist on this? Surely it wasn't that often-derided _sentiment._ Surely not. Was there another reason, then?

_Perhaps it had to do with Her._ John closed his eyes. The alien woman from a world called Gallifrey, a divorcee who, according to Sherlock, was over a thousand years old. The telepath who'd become Sherlock's client, then become his friend, then, somehow, had become an indispensable part of his life. John thought back to the day before at New Scotland Yard, to how Sherlock had become distressed while examining the corpse of _SNEEZY_, the latest victim in what John's mind had already titled the Snow White Murders. The Counsellor had gone to him, taken his hand and allowed him to have some sort of catharsis, all the while hiding behind that impassive mask of his. For the rest of the day, while Jack Harkness had his efficient Torchwood people process the scene and take away the body, Sherlock's hand had hardly left the Counsellor's. John couldn't deny the effect: Sherlock's mood evened out, he became more cooperative with Jack's questions, and he'd even shared a smile or two with John over the late Jim Moriarty's shenanigans.

_Strength, yes_, John thought, recalling how Sherlock had described his bond with the Time Lord. Undeniably there was some sort of strength there. He only hoped it wasn't the setup for a really spectacular breakdown if – when – something went wrong.

It became apparent that John wasn't going to be getting any more sleep, so he quickly got dressed and made his way out of the Phantom Baker Street and into the console room of the Counsellor's TARDIS. He was surprised to find her awake and staring at displays.

"Do Time Lords sleep?" he asked.

She shrugged. "We _can_. I don't feel the need right now."

"Anything on your mind?"

She smiled at him. "Lots."

He nodded. The silence between them was surprisingly companionable, comfortable. Of course, that could just be her mood-manipulating gift at work, but he hoped it wasn't. He meandered around the console room until he felt his curiosity turn to whatever was on her display. He came to stand behind her. She didn't seem the least bit annoyed with his intrusion.

"What's this, then?" he asked. It appeared to be security camera footage.

"Mycroft," she said. She flashed him a grin. "He's monitoring the flat, of course. I'm trying to decide if I want to have a little fun with him or not."

"You've tapped into his surveillance?" John asked with an incredulous laugh.

"What, like that's hard?"

He shook his head. "No, I suppose it wouldn't be."

"Sherlock up?" she asked, switching the display off.

"Didn't notice."

She nodded. She was moving around the console, idly flipping switches and reviewing readouts, but he noticed that her eyes fell on him more often than was strictly necessary. "Sleep well?"

"Would I be up at –" he glanced down at the watch on his wrist, "three in the morning if I'd slept well?"

She didn't meet his eye. "Something wrong with your room?"

"For what it is, no." He crossed his arms over his chest. "But it's not my room, not really, is it?"

That got her to finally look him in the eye again. "What do you mean?"

"It's just an illusion, some elaborate magic trick you've pulled off with this TARDIS of yours. It's not two-two-one-B Baker Street."

"Of course it isn't."

"So – why?"

She frowned at him. "Are you making small talk with me, or do you honestly not know that he craves the old space, his old life?"

"You did this for him, then."

"Yes." She stopped fiddling with the console and took a step closer. "And you're staying there because it helps him, not because it helps you."

John winced. Was this another re-hash of the conversation he'd had with Irene Adler all that time ago?

_"We're not a couple."  
"Yes you are."  
"Who knows about Sherlock Holmes, but if anyone still cares, I'm not gay."  
"Well, I am. Look at us both."_

"I thought it would help me, too, but it just seems so hollow, somehow."

"Because you're allowing yourself to become aware it's a replication," she said. "You're refusing to suspend disbelief."

He frowned. "I'm not trying to be difficult."

"John, I'd already concluded all of this. You're not comfortable there, but you won't leave because you don't want to disappoint him by walking out on him again. Yes, _of course_ I could build you another illusion, but would you be happy with it? Or would you prefer to stay in the flat out there?" She motioned to the door of the TARDIS, the one that appeared to be a wardrobe door on the other side. "Whatever it is you need of me, just tell me." A few heartbeats' worth of silence spun between them before her voice dropped into a slightly less abrasive tone. "You won't change the arrangement, though, will you? You'll continue to stay up there," with this she motioned to the door marked _221B_, "and you'll continue to accommodate him."

"It's a bit unnerving, actually," he said.

"What is?"

"Having _two of you_ around, constantly analyzing me and making your little deductions. Are you sure you aren't reading my mind right now?"

"I made a promise. Not unless you want me to."

"And if I want you to?"

She shrugged. She'd become bored with the conversation. "Pull that trick you pulled at the Met."

"What, this?" Somehow he'd managed to sidle up to her without her becoming aware of the proximity. He grasped two of her fingers in his, and with all of his strength he projected one thought at her: _Please don't hurt him._

She pulled away, hissing at the force of his thought. She put her hands to her temples. "Too loud, Doctor Watson. Far too loud."

"Ahem."

They both looked up to find Sherlock standing in his dressing gown and pyjamas. He was wearing a grin, but it wasn't a very nice one. "Please tell me you two have been discussing the latest corpse and how we can stop there being a sixth."

"So you want me to start lying to you?" the Counsellor quipped, the same steel in her voice.

Sherlock sighed and ran his hands through his hair. "Why does it have to always fall to me to be the brilliant one? Why can't one of you berks try it out for once?"

"What, and risk your wrath if we pull it off?" John asked.

It was only a small lip twitch – the smallest twitch, actually – but both the Counsellor and the army doctor knew what it meant. Sherlock was feeling _up to it_ today.

"I'm going back upstairs to rummage through the evidence. Counsellor, do we have a full Torchwood profile for Sneezy?"

"Yes." She held up a printout. "Here."

"Come on, then." Sherlock turned away, a graceful linchpin to a swirl of dressing gown, then headed back up into the Phantom Baker Street.

With knowing glances at each other, his two _assistants_ followed, helpless to his magnetic pull.

* * *

Jack Harkness reviewed the case file. He was up late, as usual. A weary glance at the clock revealed to him that he could officially start calling it _being up early_.

He sighed. He'd started getting some panicky phone calls from other aliens on Earth. Despite his best efforts, the rumors around the serial killings were getting out. It was going to be a rocky ride. The worst part was that he couldn't reassure any of his callers that for the most part, they were going to be alright . . .well. They'd be alright if they weren't somehow on the hit list.

He felt his phone vibrate, one quick pulse, and felt relieved that it was a text message. Even so, his temper was frayed, and his movements were perhaps a bit too jerky when he pulled the phone free to review the message.

_Get a hold of my ex. –AS_

_Well hello, Astrid dear,_ he thought to himself. He typed out his reply.

_What do I tell him? –JH_

_Make sure he's got a transporter shield on his TARDIS. If he doesn't, convince him to stay somewhere safe for a while. –AS_

_Why? –JH_

_Sherlock says he's Doc. –AS_

Jack's blood ran cold. Of course.

_Who's Dopey? –JH_

_Not touching that one, Jack. Too obvious. –AS_

_Shut up. Serious. – JH_

_How many more resident aliens are there on Earth? – AS_

_75. –JH_

_Need profiles on all of them. – AS_

Jack sighed. Of course.

_Give me 30 mins. –JH_

_Faster, please. –AS_

He chuckled despite himself, then hit a number on his speed dial and bent over his computer, fingers flying.

"Hello?"

"Doctor, it's Jack."


	9. The Ambassador

If there was anything that could help convince John that this wasn't a desperate dream of Auld Lang Syne, it was that he'd been dispatched by Sherlock Holmes to Manhattan to interview the only surviving Tullarian ambassador, all because interviewing witnesses and potential suspects could only rank a five when there were other crime scenes to visit – no less than a seven.

John and the Counsellor watched as Sherlock caught a cab, then they made their way inside to the wardrobe door. John followed the Counsellor into the TARDIS and was careful to close the door firmly behind him.

"He's going to be fine, you know."

The Counsellor looked up at him sharply. "I know that. Don't you think I know that?"

"You haven't spent a day away from him since the day you met, have you?"

She shrugged and approached the console. "He took a night off once."

"How did that go?"

"He used. I sulked."

John gave her an annoyed nod as he drew closer to the TARDIS's console. "You seem agitated now."

"Worried that he'll use again."

"Did you let him know you don't want him to do that?"

She nodded. "As much good as that will do me."

"It's all you can do, you know. He's a bull-headed adult."

She frowned at him. "I got the impression from him that you were more . . .intrusive than that, when it came to his well-being."

"Oh, I did my fair share of nagging, but all you can do in the end is give him the tools to do the right thing and hope he doesn't find a convincing enough reason to ignore you."

"Brew the tea, but don't force it down his throat?" she asked, her eyes flashing with amusement.

He smiled. "Yeah."

Her own weak, fragile smile disappeared. "I just feel like he's sent us off so he can be . . .oh, I don't know. _Himself_ again, I guess."

"You don't think he needs us."

"Right."

"You know he probably doesn't, right?"

She was shell-shocked when she looked his way again, and he couldn't help but laugh.

"What's so funny?"

"Oh, you can't be serious. He may not need _me_ around, but after last night I doubt there's anything in his head that questions _your_ value."

Yes, he was trying his damnedest to bait her into a frank discussion of why he was even here – meaning _here_, in this strange space-and-timeship, when it was clear it was only her presence that was required.

She frowned at him. "You should know that, while I refuse to read your thoughts, I wasn't given the title _Counsellor_ for nothing. I've gone toe-to-toe with some of the craftiest minds in the universe, John. Your fishing expedition isn't going to be very fruitful."

"And if I were to just ask?"

She grinned. "We'll see."

She flipped a few more levers and cranked a couple more dials before throwing the switch that propelled the TARDIS to New York City.

* * *

The now-sole ambassador from Tullari was a beautiful woman. She was tall, stately, and possessed a rather dramatic attitude; her hair was pitch black with a dramatic silver streak originating at the temple on her left side. It swept along her cheek and leant a certain _gravitas_ to a face that might have been too pretty and almost silly otherwise. Judging by her dress, she had to have been in her mid-40s. _Of course, she could just be dressing the part_, John thought to himself cautiously.

The Tullarian introduced herself as Megan Franks, and she wore her cover as a true profession: she was a talent agent for a large, lucrative modeling agency in New York City. Her apartment on the Upper West Side was decorated in a style that the fashionistas called Shabby Chic, and John got the disgusting sense that every item in the place was worth more than anything he'd ever owned. He was especially struck by the number of mirrored surfaces, bouncing light around the apartment and making it all seem surreal and shiny.

"I was in London during the big to-do over your partner, Sherlock Holmes," she said to him as she passed him a double whiskey on the rocks. He looked down at the drink, stunned. It was two in the afternoon. Her voice had a very pleasant, cultivated American accent. "It was quite the shock to me. I never believed the scandal, of course." She flashed John a betrayed look. He wondered how long the stunning purple of her contact lenses would last in those acidic eyes of hers. "It's a shame he didn't come calling himself."

John looked over that the Counsellor. He could tell she was monitoring the mood in the room, but something in her eyes was off. He knew that she could mask her expression as well as Sherlock could, so he thought maybe she meant for him to see a warning there. He lifted his eyebrows and she responded with an infinitesimally small shake of the head. _Not now_.

"So how long had you known Ms. Crenshaw?" John asked, referring to the model (_Happy) _he'd last seen in an empty alleyway near Time Square.

The woman let out a short, tinkling laugh. "All business, aren't you?" she asked. She nodded. "Fine. I'd known Calliope for five years. Since Jack Harkness told me to expect you, I'm going to assume you're up to date with all things Torchwood? You know about my background, yes?"

John nodded.

"Calliope got here from Tullari five years ago. She was training under me to assume the ambassadorship for all Earth."

"And where were you going to head off to?" John asked.

"Greener pastures," the ambassador answered with a gusty sigh. "I was slotted to assume the ambassadorship to Artemisia. Lovely place, like something out of a John William Waterhouse painting." She motioned to a well-done replica of Waterhouse's Mermaid. "Their ambassador was retiring. I'd wanted the assignment for, oh, ever so long, and Calliope – well, you know. She was overjoyed with Earth." She shook her head ruefully. "It would have been perfect."

"Any idea if Calliope had any enemies?" John asked. He cast a distracted glance over to the Counsellor. She was visibly frowning. _Not good. Something is definitely not good._

That tinkling laugh again. "_Calliope_? No. Never. That girl could befriend a rattlesnake. I'd never seen anything quite like it – well. I haven't seen anything like it in a very long time."

John didn't think it would be a good time to check on the Counsellor, not again, not so soon after the last time – but he was beginning to understand why Sherlock insisted on sharing her touch. He wanted to know what she was thinking, what her observations were. He knew already she was pulling thoughts out of thin air – maybe not his, because she'd promised – but certainly this ambassador's.

"Oh?" John asked.

"Yes. A very long time." She smiled. "Some people just have that gift, don't they? They can enter a room and understand all the personalities in the room, and they can, oh, I don't know. Manipulate seems like a bad word, but I can't think of a better one."

"Are you saying Calliope manipulated people?"

The woman shook her head. "No, not at all. She was very . . .innocent. Trusting. People loved her because she was so innocent and trusting. Maybe that in itself is a form of manipulation, but I don't see it that way. I think innocence is a form of nostalgia, don't you? People are drawn to the innocent because it reminds them of what they were like, once."

John thought for the first time that he'd lost control over this interview – then he realized he'd probably not had any control over it from the start. He was out of his depth. He hadn't done an "interview" on behalf of Sherlock Holmes in such a long time, and this subject wasn't even human. He couldn't help himself from looking at the Counsellor. _I get it now. I understand why he needs her. Secret weapon with extra senses. _She was pointedly not looking at him, instead picking through the apartment, studying knick-knacks and looking for all the world like a bored little fashionista. It worked with her avant-garde appearance, the red-and-blonde hair and bold wardrobe. He wondered if she was actually just cataloguing evidence. It was what Sherlock would do under the same circumstances.

"Very psychological deduction, that," John mumbled.

"Something of a hobby of mine," the woman said.

John shook his head, trying to clear it. He didn't have to be the genius, he only had to ask the questions he'd written down in his notebook. "When was the last time you saw Calliope?" he asked.

"The morning before she was found," she answered. Something in her attitude had changed. Before she seemed playful, almost coquettish. Now she just seemed bored.

"And what was the purpose of your meeting with her that morning?"

"Twofold. She wanted to review her portfolio. I was her agent, after all. But she also wanted to assume more responsibility over the ambassadorship – take over trade talks, initiate treaty negotiations, the like."

"And you had no problem with either of those things?"

"None at all. The sooner I was able to give her my workload, the sooner I'd be able to advance my own agenda."

"Why hadn't you given her those tasks sooner?"

"I wanted her to determine the pace. I find that's the best way to train people, don't you?"

John nodded. This was going nowhere – a dead-end conversation. He may not have much personal sympathy for this woman, but he didn't think she had any motive to kill her own protégé. "Right. Is there anything you can tell us that might help us catch the killer?"

She smiled again, but this one was completely devoid of warmth or humor. "Nothing at all. Just . . .do hurry and catch whoever it is. The rest of us want to be able to walk in broad daylight without having to be paranoid." She rose from where she'd been sitting. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to change out my contacts and get back to my regular schedule."

John was British to the very core of him, and he wanted to do a good job of saying his farewell pleasantries, but the moment the ambassador indicated that the session was over the Counsellor took his hand in hers and pulled him out of the apartment. His mind was immediately flooded with thoughts:

_John, oh God, John, I know her._

_What?_

_I didn't recognize her at first, but I do now. John, I have to get you away –_

He caught an image in her mind: her mobile phone that was actually more than a mobile phone. She reached into her pocket with her other hand. As they rode the elevator down from the ambassador's apartment, she checked her text messages. She frowned and turned her phone to John so he could read:

_Come at once. Victim #6. –SH_

She typed one-handed, not releasing John's hand. He found that an immense relief. He could hear the thought that formed the words she was typing: _Where? –AS_

The text chime sounded, and John read the words in the Counsellor's head: _The flat. –SH_

John's eyes grew wide as he caught the Counsellor's eye again. They hit the street at a sprint and didn't relent until they'd reached the shuttered trailer reading _Astrid's Caramel Apples._


	10. IOU

John and the Counsellor burst free of the wardrobe door and into the flat in London and were immediately confronted by Sherlock's scowl. "Enjoy your holiday in Manhattan?" he growled.

The Counsellor reached out for him and, despite his frown, he gave his hand to her willingly. John watched as her features relaxed. Sherlock afforded her a small smile.

She shrugged. "Call it sentiment if you have to," she said.

Then Sherlock moved aside and John found that he was having a hard time inhaling. There was a body on the floor of the wardrobe room.

The Counsellor gasped. "How long?" she asked.

Sherlock shrugged. "It was here when I returned home from the mattress shop." All three of them paced off a circle around the victim. John's medical mind started logging observations: Female, mid-fifties, and corpulent with swollen ankles, distended neck, staring brown eyes, slightly open mouth, blue tongue.

She nodded. "I'll pull the surveillance footage so we can get an exact time. Should I assume Mycroft has already contacted you?"

"Yes. I also suspect he's reached out to Captain Harkness, but just to be safe, perhaps we should do so."

She let go of his hand and pulled out her mobile. She typed quickly and shoved her phone back in her pocket. "Make sure Doctor Watson doesn't go anywhere," she said to Sherlock.

That surprised him. He looked between her and John, confusion written large on his face. "What? Why?"

She frowned at him. "Really? Sherlock, there are two Doctors who are significant to me now."

John was stunned silent. Sherlock took a step closer to her. "You? What does all this have to do with you?"

She shrugged. "I'm not one-hundred-percent sure that it has _anything_ to do with me, but I know – well, _knew_ – that Tullarian ambassador. She made a pretty elaborate show of not recognizing me. Maybe she didn't –"

"You don't _know_ if she didn't?" Sherlock's face was a study in concentration.

"No. Shield. A completely voluntary, perfectly effective shield. I wasn't able to read a single thought."

Sherlock grimaced. John was barely following the conversation; his mind was stuck in a loop: _Two Doctors who are significant to me now._

The Counsellor barged ahead. "Have you looked over the body?"

Sherlock nodded. "Yes, in the infinite time afforded to me while I was forced to wait on you to bring that contraption back to London."

_Overcompensating_, John thought, then returned to his loop: _Two Doctors who are significant to me now._

"Any conclusions?" she asked.

Sherlock held up one of Torchwood's profiles. "The standard. Strangled on a bit of apple. Not too aware of the unique physiology of the species –"

The Counsellor snatched the profile away from him and reviewed it. She huffed loudly and her eyes grew wide. "Artemisian."

John reacted. "From . . .Artemisia? Didn't the ambassador mention that planet while we were interviewing her?"

She nodded. Her normally tanned skin seemed two shades paler when she turned back to Sherlock. "Artemisians are damned near humans. They have much stronger bones, and they react to human food differently. They hate most of the proteins, like beans and meat, but some of the starches produce a form of euphoric high in their systems."

"Dopey," Sherlock said with a sharp nod. "Also explains the evidence of chocolates and creams on the victim's clothing – there, at the sleeve especially."

"Right." The Counsellor turned away from the corpse. She fished her phone back out of her pocket and answered the vibrating device. "Hello, Jack? Yes, another one. Get your people over here. Did you hear back from the Doctor?"

John watched her for a moment as she interrogated Jack Harkness about precautions. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to find Sherlock studying him intently. "Sounds like we have to find a safe spot for you," he said.

John reviewed everything he knew about the case in his mind and felt a black form of dread steal over him. "Is there such a place?" he asked.

Sherlock grinned at him. "Come now, John. Saving you from the villains is what I do best."

"But only after I've been abducted, you great git," John responded.

"Been a while since that's happened. Have you considered I've gotten better at what I do best?"

John let out a nervous bark of laughter. "The thought had never crossed my mind."

They were both giggling when the Counsellor returned her attention to them. "I'd ask about the joke, but I'm sure it's not really important," she said.

Sherlock didn't acknowledge her comment. His eagle eyes had caught sight of something, and he strode purposefully back to the corpse. He pointed to a bulge in the woman's coat. "Was that there before?"

John shifted his gaze from the protrusion to Sherlock's face. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that I would have noticed that during my first pass, while I was waiting on you," he answered. "It wasn't there." Sherlock knelt and put his hand into the pocket. He pulled an item free, then promptly dropped it and scrambled backwards.

John saw that it was a red globe. His heart rose to his throat as he approached it. It was an apple, and cut into its surface – either by teeth or knife or a combination of the two – were three simple letters.

_IOU_.

The Counsellor came to stand beside John, then stooped to pick up the apple. Without a word, John slipped his hand into hers and gently reminded her of the way Moriarty had used an apple with these same markings to notify Sherlock that his last game, the Final Problem, the grand Fairy Tale, had begun.

_Why is it affecting him so much? _

_You can't be serious_, John thought, turning to look into her face. _The whole thing resulted in Sherlock losing his Work._

Her eyes widened, and she nodded. _Of course. But John, it resulted in him losing _you_. You're impossibly dense sometimes._

John frowned and pulled his hand free. She didn't seem to mind. She knelt in front of Sherlock and took both of his hands in hers. John watched as both of them shot a quick glance at him. Sherlock's face turned to stone. She ran soft fingers through his hair.

John just stood stock still, scared for his life and wondering – again – how it could be possible that he was this important to Sherlock Holmes.

* * *

Jack Harkness swept into the flat and followed the Counsellor to the wardrobe room. He waved his team in after him and asked questions as they processed the scene.

"Well, if nothing else, it's pretty clear this message was directed at one of the three of you," Jack said, eyeing the apple. "The main question is –"

"_Who_ is owed _what?_" Sherlock said. He was back in control of himself. The monsters were all tucked back under the bed thanks to the Counsellor and her incredible mind control. Sherlock was humming along at his most brilliant deductive emotionlessness. "Moriarty told me that he owed me a fall. So, again, who is owed what in this scenario?"

"And who is the student of that old case?" the Counsellor asked. "Somebody's studied every detail. The general public surely didn't know about this apple, did they?"

All three of them heard it at once, that silvery grinding noise that announced the arrival of a special guest. They turned to find the Doctor's TARDIS materializing in a darkened corner of the room.

The door opened and the Doctor stepped out. John had never met this man, but he'd seen glimpses of him – all eleven versions of him – in the Counsellor's mind. This was the version with the bow tie and the floppy brown hair. "Hello, darling," he said to the Counsellor.

"I thought we agreed you weren't going to call me that again," she said. Her tone came off as indifferent, but John knew that was far from the truth.

"Would you prefer something else?"

Her face took on a thunderous nastiness that John couldn't stomach. "Sure. Call me _sweetie._"

The Doctor blanched and turned away.

"As fascinating as it is to watch you two bicker," Jack said, stepping between them, "I think we really should be focused on getting you somewhere safe."

* * *

John had faith that Jack Harkness had a plan. He was able to hold on to that faith for the time it took for him and the Doctor to be escorted out of the flat and towards a waiting vehicle that was vaguely reminiscent of a tank. Then he felt that faith replaced by dread as the world around him vanished.


	11. Mirror, Mirror

John Watson didn't like to talk about Afghanistan. He saw it often enough in his sleep to sometimes wonder which was reality and which was the nightmare; was he really safe at home in London, or was he still on the battlefield in that rugged, somehow gorgeous country? Of course, since he'd met Sherlock Holmes, he'd never bothered with the illusion of _safe at home in London_, but the questions persisted: Where was he?

Sometimes the nightmares were so disorienting he'd wake up gasping, even now. And that's what this felt like, this slow-swarming reconstruction into a new reality. His flesh shifted and buzzed, and his disorientation was so acute he had a hard time understanding anything. His very identity seemed like a label he had to reapply to himself, and it didn't stick quite the way it should.

He gasped deeply and wondered if that was only because his lungs had finally reported one-hundred-percent present.

"Ah, Doctor Watson."

He looked around the room wildly. His mind felt a little like syrup. He wondered if all of the parts of his brain—glial cells, neurons, glands—had finally slid into place or if they were still trying to sort out the connections needed for full functioning. Finally his eyes landed on a stately female figure standing nearby. His whole body gave off an involuntary twitch. He knew her.

"Glad to see you made it through intact. Hmm. Maybe I should double-check that. The reconstructor has been acting a bit . . ._off_ lately. Can you tell me your full name, little about yourself?"

He responded without delay. "Captain John Hamish Watson, army doctor, retired." He bit his tongue. Enough of his typical reserve had returned to make him aware he was being too cooperative.

"Good! Very good. A damaged John Watson would not do for this purpose at all. I don't know that they'd be so willing to rescue you if you were damaged."

"Ambassador," he said.

"Mm," she hummed in assent. "Good to see you again too, and so soon!" He blinked hard, trying to get a sense of the room, but it seemed to be spinning, swimming. _Got to pull myself together_, he thought to himself, blinking rapidly.

"Oh, don't bother, John. Can I call you John? Don't bother with trying to sort out what you can see." She gestured dramatically around her. "All mirrors, you see?"

He looked around again, suddenly aware that he was bound spread-eagled to a table that was at a roughly seventy-five degree angle. Reflections bounced off of each other, and yes, the Tullarian ambassador's form was repeated over and over again. It was confusing and distressing. He closed his eyes and murmured, "Mirror, mirror, on the wall . . ."

She let out a soft chuckle. "Every fairy tale needs a good old-fashioned villain," she said, and her words summoned a ghost. After his return, Sherlock had shared with him the conversation he'd had with Moriarty at Baker Street.

"And you're that villain."

She sighed and leaned against a mirrored table. John became aware that a rather large mirror loomed directly next to him on his right. A reflection of his own face was uncomfortable, so he kept his attention fixed on her.

"If there has to be a villain in your story, then yes, I suppose I am that villain. Nobody is ever willing to shift their perspective, are they?"

_Keep her talking_, he thought to himself. "Your perspective?"

"Do you really care about my perspective, or are you just trying to fill the time with conversation?" she asked. She shrugged. "We have the time, I suppose. Couldn't hurt anything. If I win, you'll be dead and nobody will be the wiser. If I lose . . .well, _victori spolia_, as the Romans used to say when Latin was still a way to say it."

"It was the Counsellor, wasn't it?" he asked. Yes, his brain was finally fully functional, and the danger he was in was finally coming to bear. John Watson wasn't the kind of man to panic, but he was definitely realistic about danger. When one lived with Sherlock Holmes, it came in handy. _Keep her talking_, he thought again. _Maybe she'll slip up._

She smiled, and that smile reminded him she wasn't likely to be that stupid. She shrugged, apparently coming to the decision that telling him a little more wouldn't be too risky. "Yes. She's regenerated at least once since I knew her before, but under the face she's still the same."

He gave her plenty of time to explain, but that wasn't going to happen. She disappeared behind that mirrored wall to his right, then re-emerged and assessed him with her unnerving red eyes. _No contacts now. No need._

"What I don't understand," he said carefully, trying very hard to modulate his voice, "is how you knew all of that about Moriarty. I can understand doing a bit of research, but some of the details you used couldn't be known to anyone in the media."

She shrugged. "Moriarty liked big, flashy productions. When I came to him, looking for ideas on how I could be exiled away from this ridiculous waterlogged rock, he proposed the fairy tale angle. He said he saw me as some great queen, and that _bitch_ they sent to keep me in line . . .well. Snow White, obviously."

"Wait, wait," John said, narrowing his eyes cynically. "Are you saying Moriarty was in love with you?"

She gave him some rough approximation of a coquettish blush. "Come now. That rat? Perhaps he was fascinated, but not any more than he was with that _friend_ of yours." She shook her head. "No, he was far more interested in his precious work, and he loved the idea that his infamy had spread so far to include the whole universe. He was drunk on his own power, Doctor Watson. That might be why he got so excited and initiated his last con before wrapping up mine. Selfish prick."

"So you were trying to pull a con against Calliope that would have gotten you exiled away from Earth."

She nodded, amused by his slow but steady progress.

"But you're still here. Why?"

She shrugged. "I started hearing rumors that the Counsellor was on Earth. You know how it is when you get a chance to meet an old . . ._friend_ . . .with whom you have unfinished business. I detest this planet, but if it gave me the chance to resolve our old business, then I'd stay. Then – well, then I found out she had taken up with Jim's old . . ._friend_ . . .Sherlock Holmes, and things got so much easier."

"You're abusing the word _friend_."

"Humans do it far more often and far more casually than I do," she said. Her attention flicked back over to the other side of the mirrored wall again.

"What's over there?"

She grinned. "My other guest."

"The Doctor."

She didn't answer. She just watched John. He wondered if she could read minds, then decided he should err on the side of caution. He knew he wasn't capable of blanking his mind completely – only Sherlock had that kind of total control, as far as he could tell – but he had to do something to protect his thoughts. He sighed. There was only one place he could go, one train of thought that could hide his military training, his assets, his liabilities.

_Mary_.

He let the memories take him again: blue-green eyes like a stained-glass window hiding a dark church full of terror. She was so dark, his Mary, but he hadn't known it until the next to the last day of their honeymoon. Until then she'd been as bright as her eyes had advertised, a sunny smile and an accommodating personality, a beautiful day on a beach compared to the gritty monochrome of London at night, the strains of violin and Sherlock's cold deductions. She was _sentiment_ at last – but she was too much, a tsunami of emotions and helpless fear.

_I'm so sorry, Mary. I'm sorry. I didn't know what you needed, but I assumed that whatever it was, I could handle it. I'd handled Sherlock Holmes, surely I could face your demons . . .but they were all in your head, sweetheart. How could I fight the demons in your head?_

"Where are you right now, Doctor Watson?" that light feminine voice asked from what felt like a hundred miles away.

He shook his head. "Far away."

"You don't seem very happy about it."

He pulled himself back to the shifting sands of the current moment, the swirling mirrored room and the wicked queen straight out of a fairy tale. He narrowed his eyes. The warrior in him was back, and the chill of the ice in his veins felt very good after the flood of far-too-warm emotions. "I can take it."

"Mm, I'm sure you can." She drew closer to him and smiled. Her teeth seemed just a bit too sharp. "But how far are you willing to take it?"

He studied her teeth for a moment, then the Counsellor's voice whispered through his mind: _Bite, scratch, or spit._

_Shit._

"What's at stake?" he asked.

"I think I've already answered that question," she said.

"My life."

"Yes."

"Is that all?"

She laughed. "Ever the valiant soldier . . .is that what I'm supposed to believe?"

He frowned, briefly debated with himself over whether or not he should tell her the full truth, then shrugged. _Sod this._ "I really don't care what you believe, but if your plan includes harm coming to either Sherlock Holmes or the Counsellor, then my life won't be the only one at stake here."

"He's right, you know."

Another voice came from the other side of the mirror to John's left, male, familiar – _The Doctor._

"You shut up," the woman hissed. John pulled his face as far as his bindings would allow. _Wouldn't do to get any poisonous spittle sprayed on me before I know what's going on,_ he thought, then let out a helpless little giggle.

"Oh, come now," the Doctor said from over the partition. "You're having a cosy little chat; why can't I join in? It's lonely over here."

"Hello, Doctor," John said. Maybe he was an ally. Certainly he wasn't any more dangerous an enemy than this half-mad woman and her mirrored room.

"Yes, hello, Doctor," the sunny voice responded. "All okay over there? No gaping wounds I should know about?"

"Not yet," John answered. He realized that he was grinning.

"I don't mind rendering one or both of you unconscious," the ambassador said, crossing her arms.

"Why bother?" the Time Lord asked. "You know full well they're on their way, and you'll have to go through the bother of waking us again once they get here to prove we're alright before you threaten to kill us. Might as well let us have the last friendly chat."

"The effort of reviving you would be worth it to not have to hear you _chat_," she said, but she stepped away from where she'd been standing and returned to her mirrored table.

"Doctor Watson, should I assume you're as tightly bound as I am?"

"Yes."

"Unarmed?"

"Yes."

"Well that's not helpful, is it?"

The ambassador sighed. "I have to leave the room for a moment. You should assume I'm eavesdropping and chat accordingly." John watched as she moved, the reflections distorting his perception. A door swung open and shut again without disclosing any sense of the room's proportion.

"Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers," the Doctor murmured.

John hummed in agreement.

"Saw some combat."

Another hum. The conversation felt exceedingly strange. John remembered a similar conversation with Sherlock, shortly before he'd been dragged along on the first case.

"Used to reacting without thought, purely on instinct and adrenaline."

"Yes."

"You thrive on it."

"Yes."

"Good. That's good. Because I think we're going to be seeing a bit of adrenaline shortly."

"How can you know they're on their way?"

The Doctor chuckled. "My ex-wife – maybe you don't know her the way I do, but she's not one to dilly-dally."


	12. Bored

Twenty minutes after he was informed that the Counsellor did not "dilly dally," John ran out of innocuous small talk. It didn't seem to matter. The Doctor had a _lot_ of innocuous small talk. At first, John tried to pay close attention to what the Doctor was saying; maybe something in his long-winded, meandering diatribes was important, a coded message that would point their way free of this situation.

Twenty minutes of careful attention later, John realized that _Nope_, there was nothing of importance in the Doctor's stories. He was half-mad, just as the Counsellor had claimed.

Twenty minutes after John came to the conclusion that the Time Lord was half-mad, he realized that maybe he'd been wrong. He started to pick up on a strange, rhythmic subtext to what the Doctor was saying. Tuning out the actual words wasn't too much of a hardship; right now the half-human was rambling on and on about the chemical composition of Saturn's rings. John focused all his attention on that strange rhythmic pattern.

Twenty minutes after he started paying attention to the rhythm, John had realized several important things:  
The Doctor wasn't useless.  
The rhythm didn't conform to a time signature, so therefore wasn't musical.  
The rhythm conformed very neatly to Morse code.  
The Morse code clearly said, "When you get this, snap your fingers." Over and over. And over.  
So that's what John did. He snapped his fingers. The Doctor didn't break stride in his monologue – currently regarding the Battle of Tripoli and the socioeconomic impacts of same – but his very faint tapping changed.

Twenty minutes after that, things finally started getting really, really interesting.

* * *

"Oh, please just _shut up_."John snapped out of his attentive reverie. He'd slipped into some sort of tunnel awareness, listening only for the Doctor's tapping communications, shutting out all other stumuli. He dragged his eyes open and scanned the room.

The Evil Queen was back. She was staring at the other side of the mirrored partition, presumably imparting a powerful stink-eye to the Doctor.

Maybe John's period of intense concentration had done him a world of good. He swung his focus in the alien's direction, took one really good look at her, and said, "Vuennin."

She froze. Her strange red eyes swung over to him. "Excuse me?"

"Your eyes. Vuennin. You aren't from Tullari."

He heard a light but frantic tapping from the other side of the partition and, distantly, he knew the Doctor was trying to warn him off of this topic, but John couldn't be distracted. The ambassador drew herself to her full height and gave him a horrid smile full of teeth. "I have Vuennin eyes, yes, Doctor Watson. But does it follow that I'm not Tullarian?"

He pursed his lips at her. "I don't follow."

Her attitude had changed from saccharine impatience to a barely contained fury. "No, you don't, do you? You ridiculously trite bastard."

"What's wrong, Ambassador?" the Doctor asked from the other side of the partition. "Have your sensors picked up something that makes you uncomfortable?"

"Of course they haven't," she hissed. "And that's the problem. I would have thought that between the two of you, I'd have somehow picked up a hostage that bitch couldn't ignore, but _no_, here you both are outstaying your welcome and becoming an uncomfortable burden." John noticed something in her hand, long and curved and gleaming. "I'm tired of waiting."

"So it's time to start slicing things, is it?" the Doctor asked.

"I'm going to give you a choice, Doctor," she said by way of answer. She pressed a button on the mirrored table on which she'd rested earlier, and the partition between John and the Doctor slowly withdrew. "You can decide who's going to go under my blade first: you or John Watson."

"Clean death?" the Doctor asked.

"What do you think?"

"Oh." John was surprised to realize that exhalation, that expression of delighted epiphany, had come from his own throat.

The Evil Queen turned on him. "Oh _what_?"

"You're bored," John answered.

"Excuse me?"

"That may not be where this started, but it's where it is now. You'd envisioned abducting us and having a swift capitulation, but here we are, nearly two hours later, and the dramatic rescue has been delayed."

"Is this somehow my fault?" she asked.

"No, not at all. You chose the right hostages, surely. Doubtless you chose a hideout that they can find if they're just brilliant enough – and I assure you, they are. So then why the delay?" John asked. It was a purely rhetorical device, and she recognized it as such, but the expression on her face wasn't curiosity or a need to hear whatever point he was driving at. Her face was the breeding ground for _Caution_. She was looking at him as though he was a cute little Easter Bunny that had somehow grown fangs and was brandishing an AK-47.

John decided to press on, feeling a little wild and helpless to his own train of thought. _Is this how Sherlock feels when he's built up a good head of steam?_ He wondered to himself. "So here you sit, waiting, knowing you can't kill us and still hating the fact that we're intact." John nodded at the weapon she was wielding. "Of course you know that if they show up and we're the least bit . . ._compromised_ . . .it will be even worse for you. You _do_ know that, don't you?"

Her lip curled. "And why would that be?"

A rich baritone voice answered from the shadows ringing the mirrored room. "Because people fight harder when they're trying to protect life than they do when they're trying to avenge it."

Sherlock and the Counsellor emerged from the shadows, hand-in-hand.

The Ambassador turned on them, hissing out a warning. The Counsellor gave her a weary smile. "Hello, Morrigan," she said. "Long time, no see."


	13. Three Bullets

"Don't call me Morrigan," the Evil Witch said, her eyes brimming with rage. "I am _The_ Morrigan."

"Yes, of course. Last of your kind," the Counsellor sighed.

John stared at the Counsellor in mute horror. Was this woman trying to get him and The Doctor killed? Sure, there may be some way that she and Sherlock would be able to keep them from fully _dying_, but some form of physical harm was all but assured, and it would all be due to her unfortunate decision to goad the angry dragon.

"Last of my kind thanks to _you_," The Morrigan said, bristling. She stood between the two Doctors and wielded her blade, bringing it alternatingly between John's neck and the Time Lord's. "Weapons? Let me see what you've got."

The Counsellor held up her mobile, then put it carefully on the floor and kicked it away. Both she and Sherlock held up their hands and wrists. They were both without their bracelets, the multi-purpose tools that alternated between TARDIS keys, weapons, and massively versatile tools. Sherlock removed his Belstaff and suit jacket and put them on the floor.

The Counsellor scowled as The Morrigan swept away from the two Doctors. "For the last time, it wasn't my fault."

"And for what will not likely be the last time, I don't believe you."

"Darling?" The Doctor interjected.

The Counsellor sighed. "Doctor, you remember _The_ Morrigan, don't you?" the Counsellor asked, the sarcasm in her voice calling to mind a beautiful, awful girl John had been half in love with at university.

"I do not."

John saw a flutter of angry heat pass from The Counsellor to The Doctor. "You inattentive bastard." She shook her head. "She was at the summit on Rigel Six."

John looked over at the Time Lord strapped to a table beside him. His expression was blank. "Rigel Six? Was I there?"

"Oh, hell." The Counsellor looked over at The Morrigan again. "If this whole setup involves me making a choice between your two captives, then go ahead and kill that one." She pointed at her ex-husband.

"Nice try," The Morrigan said, crossing her arms and being very careful of the blade she still brandished. "You don't want to be the last, trust me."

"Why not?" The Counsellor asked. "I'd reconciled myself to the thought long ago."

"But you knew he was still out there somewhere."

The Counsellor sighed. "Do you honestly think I'm incapable of revenge?"

"You?" The Morrigan was incredulous. "The sweet and wholesome Counsellor, who wants to do nothing more than heal every broken heart? Oh, please."

John had been watching Sherlock's face, trying to get the man's attention, but the detective had been preoccupied with the rather childish verbal volley between the two females in the room. He finally rocked back a little on his heels and turned his attention to The Morrigan. His left hand was still grasped firmly in the Time Lord's right, but he pointed at her with his free hand. "Her? Sweet and wholesome? Have you met?"

The Morrigan tilted her head at Sherlock. "So she's managed to work her little Diplomat Trick on you and make you think she's like you, has she? How charming."

"Sorry?"

The Morrigan sneered and gestured at their joined hands. "That. That _hand-holding_ thing. It's how she replicates your personality. She's probably been doing it from the moment you met."

John blanched. This was not good. It wouldn't do to have Sherlock doubt his alliance with The Counsellor. As far as John could see, he was far too psychologically involved.

"You lying witch," The Counsellor said, her voice a low rumble. "Was this part of your plan? Destroy our bond, then pick us apart?"

"Three bullets," The Morrigan said, a cruel smile spreading across her face. "Three gunmen, three victims. Isn't that how it went, Sherlock Holmes?"

John watched as the color drained from Sherlock's face. Then he noticed as a bright red dot appeared over his own heart. He glanced quickly around the room and noticed the same laser sights trained on The Doctor and The Counsellor.

The Morrigan giggled. "I'm pretty sure I know who you'll choose, Mr. Holmes. Not a difficult deduction." She nodded, and the sight trained on The Counsellor shifted to Sherlock. "Again, I think I know who you'll choose, too, you raw freak. That would be _twice_ that The Doctor dies." She nodded again, and the sight moved from John to The Counsellor. "Look at that. The Doctor dies again."

"Are you going to do me next?" The Doctor asked from where he'd been strapped. "Or are you just trying to establish that nobody in this room loves me?"

"It isn't that simple," The Counsellor muttered softly. She pulled her hand free of Sherlock's grip and walked slowly to The Doctor's table. The Morrigan bristled as she passed, but did nothing to stop her.

"Hello, darling," The Doctor said softly. His eyes were wide as he regarded his former wife.

John was close enough to see The Counsellor wince. She drew her hand back and brought it down hard across The Doctor's cheek. Then she took his face in both her hands and kissed him full on the mouth.

John's jaw fell. The Counsellor _hated _The Doctor; he thought he was pretty solid on that front. He'd seen her thoughts, her unfiltered, unprotected thoughts. But . . .maybe it was a front. Maybe she'd been telling him what he wanted to hear. She _had_ been flirting with him, and it was never a secret that John responded to flirty females. Maybe The Morrigan was right; The Counsellor replicated parts of peoples' personalities in order to win them over. She'd told him herself that she'd gone up against some of the wiliest negotiators in the galaxy. Couldn't be difficult to fool a couple of humans.

John shifted his eyes to Sherlock's. The man was hiding his thoughts behind a stone mask of impassivity, but John could feel the burning confusion and the beginnings of pain surging through that tall, lanky frame.

_I told you not to hurt him!_ John hurled this thought at The Counsellor. He saw her flinch.

"So, Counsellor, if this was up to you, who would you choose?" The Morrigan asked.

The Counsellor pulled away from the kiss with a loud smack. "Three bullets," she said. "Only one of us lives."

The Morrigan gave her a small nod. "Yes."

"Then what is this artifice about _choice_?"

"Do you think you're exempted a bullet? One of the bullets would take you too, unless you choose yourself."

"I volunteer."

Four pairs of eyes swiveled to John Watson.

"Excuse me?" The Morrigan asked him.

He shuddered. "I'm not a good man. I betrayed my wife – nothing so common as cheating on her, but I wasn't good to her. I denied her the emotional comfort she craved right when she needed it most. So . . .kill me. I'm not worth the saving."

"Don't be ridiculous," Sherlock said. His voice was deeper than usual.

John smiled nervously at him. His veins were full of ice. "Come now, Sherlock. Did you think it would be the three of us frolicking through the universe? I'm the least useful person here. You're needed. You need her. And he –" John turned to look at The Doctor, who was looking back at him like he was some fascinating species of flying horse. "Well, I'm sure he's done a lot of really amazing things for Queen and Country." He switched his attention back to The Counsellor. "You don't have to be the last. And you don't have to have revenge. Just . . .let it go."

"You're talking as though your death is the only one I require," The Morrigan said. "Three bullets. I get three lives. And honestly, it's not as though that will make up for losing my other half."

The Counsellor turned to her. "_Why_ do you still blame me for that? I did nothing wrong."

"No? Maybe your memory is different from mine. You were seen with my mate during that summit on Rigel Six. After his conversation with you – and without so much as a _See you later, sweetheart_ to me – he got into a matter reconstruction pod and had himself transported into the flaming heart of Rigel."

"And that's all you know about it."

"What else do I _need_ to know about it? The coordinates were clear on the pod. He shot himself into the center of a star, and all because you put some sort of mind curse on him."

"What was the motivation?" Sherlock asked. John turned his attention to him. He'd come back to himself, and his cunning was shining in his eyes.

"What?" The Morrigan snapped.

"Motive. Why would she talk your mate into committing suicide? How would that benefit her?"

"Why do people do anything?" The Morrigan asked. "Maybe she was tired of being ignored by her own husband and wanted to break up the most significant union at the summit. Maybe she was just _bored_. Who knows?"

"Don't you think it's important?"

"I don't care why anybody does anything. I only care about revenge. If The Counsellor had been serious about revenge, then she would have been consumed by it, so much so that she would never, _ever_ have developed any attachments while seeking its consummation. Doesn't that make you wonder about everything she's told you, Mr. Holmes?"

He smiled. "Not at all."

She bared her teeth. "Why the hell am I asking you anything?"

"I volunteer."

All eyes swiveled towards The Doctor. He shrugged. "I'm not happy. I'm alone. I turned my back on my wife and my world, then came here – somehow forgetting that everyone I'd ever meet would die long before I would." He sighed deeply. "I tried to give them their lives back, those friends of mine. Seems I'm not so good at that. I've ruined lives. Perhaps you should stop me before I do it again."

The Morrigan drew closer to him. She brought her blade – dark red and sinister – up against his neck. "You know the bullet would start your regeneration," she purred in his ear. When he nodded, she added, "And then I'd lop your head off."

"Fine."

"Then me."

John gaped at Sherlock. "What did you just say?"

Sherlock gave him a tight-lipped smile. "What? Did you think I'd be glad to be without you again?"

"Sherlock –"

"John, it's my life. I'll end it as I see fit."

The Morrigan giggled delightedly at the look on The Counsellor's face: _Horror._


	14. Vatican Cameos

The Morrigan froze. John initially kept his gaze fixed on Sherlock: _What in the _hell_, you sodding idiot? You are the last of us who should even consider this. The world doesn't appreciate you, and I know that, and everything I've done since I met you – except for dear Mary, of course – was my attempt to atone for the whole of the stupid world . . .but the world still _needs_ you. You are not ever to willingly remove yourself._

But the silence lasted long enough for even John Watson to notice. He tore his attention away from Sherlock and returned it to the Evil Queen. She was looking around at the lot of them with open confusion.

The next voice was The Doctor's: "I'm confused as to what happens next," he said. His voice was gentle and not the least bit provocative.

"So am I," The Morrigan admitted. "On the one hand, I could take the three of you up on your volunteerism. It would so obviously crush The Counsellor. She looks rather ill at the moment. The drawback is that I'm not completely convinced she isn't only pretending to care. She does that so well." The Morrigan studied her wicked red blade, then spoke again. "_Or_ I could make her choose the three, as was my original plan. I'm sure she would choose herself and The Doctor – after all, she may have been sincere in her claims of revenge – but after that it would be a matter of either killing her new . . ._friend_ . . .or hurting him irrevocably. Classic moral dilemma, and I simply _love_ those."

"You're abusing the word _friend_ again," John said. He was growing tired of being hopped up on adrenaline. _Just kill me and get it over with._

"Finally, I could just kill the lot of you – but where would be the fun of that? I wouldn't have the satisfaction of watching her suffer, and that was what this was all about. So, no. Not going to be wholesale slaughter, not today." She scraped a finger across the edge of the blade and watched as blood pooled on her fingertip. Her blood wasn't red. It was iridescent yellow. It reminded John of the shimmery remains left behind on windshields after a ride through an insect-infested countryside. The Morrigan nodded, then faced the Counsellor again. "Right. Nobody else has any power here, Counsellor. Just you and me, as always. If that summit on Rigel Six taught me anything, it's to never, ever trust you, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't give you the power to bring about your own destruction. Who dies, then?"

"Can I . . ." Sherlock. He looked sick.

The Counsellor flashed him a strained look from where she stood next to The Doctor. "Can you what?"

"Can I just ask that I'm killed first?" John was fairly certain he'd never seen this look on Sherlock's face, not even during the whole business with HOUND. Sherlock was trembling, but not with terror. He was full of need and sadness.

"No," said The Morrigan. "In fact, you should know that if anything happens to me, my snipers are instructed to kill everyone remaining – everyone except The Counsellor, that is." She turned her smile back to The Doctor. "And I've told them to make sure to reload and kill you again during your regeneration, Time Lord."

The Counsellor blanched. "But –"

"No. That's enough talking. You were all amusing for a while, but this has become tiresome. I don't want to give you any more of my time. My mate will be avenged. Let's get this over with. Who do you choose, Counsellor?"

"Who do I choose to live."

The Morrigan smiled and nodded. "Yes."

The Counsellor bowed her head. "Give me a moment, please."

The Morrigan leaned back against her mirrored table, considering, then smiled. "Just a moment, but no hand-holding. I don't trust those hands of yours."

The Counsellor approached The Doctor and smiled at him. He smiled back. "This isn't how I imagined my revenge would go down," she said to him.

He nodded. "I expected an explosion or two."

Her smile grew bitter. "You put me through enough of them."

He shook his head. "It's alright, darling. It's alright now."

The Counsellor's eyes were full of pain as she looked between Sherlock and John. She was deliberating, and John knew that. "Pick me," John whispered. "Please. Don't – he needs to – he's . . ._essential_."

"John –" Sherlock began, but he was interrupted by John's unexpected fury.

"No! No, you arrogant prat. Listen to me. I've had to put up with surviving your death once. I'm not going through it again. I lost you, then I lost Mary – you won't –" John took a deep, shuddering breath. "You won't put me through the grief again."

"Sherlock."

John turned towards The Counsellor. Her eyes were shining. She used her right hand to motion Sherlock over to her. John felt a strangled cry rise in his chest. "No."

The Counsellor turned to him. "You wanted me to help you past the blockages your mind. It's time. Open your mind, John."

"You've made your choice, then?" The Morrigan asked.

The Counsellor nodded. "John Watson lives." She strode over to him, determined, and bent over him. His eyes were suddenly full of her: stunning sapphire irises, wild hair, tear-streaked skin, desperate smile. "Open your mind," she whispered, then she placed her mouth on his.

His mind opened.

_She doesn't know a kiss is the most profound communication._

The thought was pure, not filtered through language; it was potent and strong, and John leaned up into the kiss. He felt something metallic yet sweet enter his mouth. Her clever tongue pulled his forward and slipped the metallic thing under.

_When I pull away, open your mouth and fire. Don't think, my sharp-shooter. Just roll your tongue and fire._ This thought conveyed that she'd placed a weapon in his mouth. He understood. His veins froze, and the sniper in him – the one far more motivated, and therefore far deadlier, than any hired gun – stepped forward, eager to set the room on fire and watch the chaos reflect endlessly in those mirrors.

She pulled away and spun, crying in a clear voice: "Vatican Cameos!"

Sherlock dropped to the floor. John's mouth opened. He bypassed the obvious target – The Morrigan – and directed his aim at the empty spaces above the mirrors, the darkness in which the snipers were hiding. He felt a profound sense of power as bolts of yellow energy erupted from his mouth. He was grateful for the metal table under him, for being bound so securely; he didn't have to worry about the recoil, he simply braced his head against that immovable object and let the energy take over. Muffled cries of surprise and pain gave way to the soft thumps of dead bodies hitting the floor. John closed his eyes to the sight of falling bodies, far more than he would have expected and some of them distinctly not human in form. He kept firing. He kept rolling his tongue against the metal under it, releasing the energy in pulses. Finally satisfied that there were no more snipers lurking in the dark, he closed his mouth and fixed his eyes on The Morrigan. His tongue continued to roll over the metal, and he could feel the energy building in his mouth. He was going to _obliterate_ her.

"Counsellor!" The Morrigan was clearly panicked. "Call him off!"

"Don't put this on me," The Counsellor said. "He's not a dog. The power is his. The _decision_ is his – who lives and who dies. Nobody in this room is better suited to make the call."

"Please," The Morrigan whimpered. She was on her knees in front of her mirrored table, her blade on the floor at her feet. "I only wanted . . .justice. My mate . . .he was all I had. I have nothing now."

"So you shouldn't care if you live or die," Sherlock said, his voice thin and remote.

"I do care," she said.

"And if you live?" The Doctor asked. "What will you do with yourself?"

"I would . . .I would go far away. Another universe, perhaps. Maybe . . .maybe I can find one where _he's_ alone, and he needs me."

"And would you give up your campaign here?" The Doctor's eyes were inscrutable.

She nodded. "Yes. Yes, please."

John's mouth was full of deadly energy. He was suddenly tired. They were all safe. The danger was neutralized. It was bad form for a soldier to attack a surrendered opponent. The solution she proposed was acceptable. He leaned his head back as far as it would go and he released the energy into the far reaches of the space. He heard it ricochet repeatedly before spending itself.

The Morrigan let out a strangled cry and, faster than anyone could credit, she snatched up her blade and charged. John was still deep enough in soldier mode to understand immediately: She had only one chance, and she was going to spend it on him – bound, helpless human who had so thoroughly routed her back-up plans, who was important enough that The Counsellor chose him to live and trusted him with the means to kill whoever he wanted. He instinctively knew that her speed was startling, and he was too surprised to get off a shot. The blade was arcing towards him. He was going to die.

The Counsellor's kick was perfect. It caught The Morrigan's downward strike at the elbow and carried the full force of her spine behind it. The Morrigan cried out in shock as her arm snapped and the blade went flying. The Counsellor was relentless, her eyes twin Tesla coils sparkling with fury and indignation. She grabbed The Morrigan's now-useless arm and wrenched it, hard, spinning her around and kicking her legs out from under her. She threw her to the ground, grabbed the blade, and brought it down. John was sure that was the kill-strike, but the blade came to a sudden stop above The Morrigan's neck.

The Morrigan was snarling. "Do it. Kill me. I will never rest until everyone you care about is dead, and you know that."

The Counsellor was trembling. "You want the mercy of a quick death."

"I want you to reunite me with my mate!"

The Counsellor leaned closer. "Listen to me, you sad, lost thing: I'm going to tell you what I told him that day at the summit." She then bent to The Morrigan's ear and whispered.

The Morrigan's eyes widened, then closed, her lips trembling. She let out a long, sad, heartbroken sigh. "Oh."

"Do you still wish for death?" The Counsellor asked, the blade sinking another fraction of an inch closer to The Morrigan's neck.

The Morrigan turned her face away and fixed her gaze on John. She took a deep breath. "No."

"Will you accept exile?"

"Can I be with him? Try to find him, to help him?"

"If you never return to this universe." The Counsellor took a deep, shuddering breath. "And if you promise to actually _listen_ to people for once instead of being so paranoid."

The Morrigan laughed and held up their linked hands. "You're in my head. Damn you, Counsellor. You're in my damned head."

The Counsellor smiled at her. "Of course. Do try to keep up."

The Morrigan nodded. "Yes. Exile. Please, just let me find him."

The Counsellor took a deep breath and closed her eyes. The Morrigan closed hers, too. John was sure they were having a conversation no one else could hear, and that was just fine. He sagged back against the table.

"Impressive, Doctor Watson," The Doctor said from his table. Sherlock was already hard at work trying to decipher the mechanism that would release John from the table. "Very impressive."

"Shut up," John said. "God, you adore the sound of your own voice, don't you?"

"But you lost faith," The Doctor said.

"Hmm?" John asked.

"I told you in code," he said. "I told you that nothing would be as it seemed. Whenever The Counsellor is involved, expect potent illusions, psychological games, and manufactured danger. My ex-wife is the most gifted negotiator in the universe. If she's made up her mind to save someone, she will tear down every mind standing in the way."

"But –"

"How did I know you gave up hope?"

"Obvious," Sherlock said, pushing down a sequence of buttons and releasing John from his bonds with a resounding click. He leaned up and wiped something from John's cheek. "Tears, John. Not once during our acquaintance have I known you to be an artful enough liar to produce them on cue. You were upset enough to produce tears."

John fell forward, his limbs useless, but there was no lack of faith in the fall. Sure enough, his mad best friend caught him easily. The last things John Watson heard before he lost consciousness was a rough chuckle and the sound of something metallic falling to the mirrored floor.


	15. Oh God Yes

_I need to stop passing out in the middle of crimes in progress._

John was aware that he had passed out again, and really he shouldn't have blamed himself for that. It had been one of those days. For all he knew, "matter reconstruction" was a pretty exhausting process. And then, of course, there had been the whole energy-sniper moment, his mouth full of unholy fire, dropping bodies like an IED in the Afghan desert. He had become death for a little while – the destroyer of worlds. That alone would have been a satisfactory reason to pass out.

_Then the Counsellor's kiss –_

The chronology of his thoughts was all wrong, but again, that couldn't be helped.

As he came more fully back to himself, he became aware of an ongoing argument taking place nearby:

"You were supposed to give _me_ the device. Why else would you have kissed me? That was the plan, wasn't it?"

"It had been, yes."

"But you didn't do it."

"You don't like firearms."

"I would have been okay with it. The device isn't as vulgar as a gun."

"Also, I thought it would be helpful to mislead The Morrigan."

"I don't think she really noticed, Counsellor."

"Fine. You want to know the real reason?"

"Yes, I do."

"I don't trust you."

"And you thought, what? That I would have killed you or one of your companions?"

"They aren't my _companions_!"

"What are they, then?"

"They're my friends!"

"That kiss seemed like more than friendship."

"I was planting the device! By the Rings of Gallifrey, you're as aggravating as ever!"

"Does he know that?"

"Who?"

"Doctor Watson. Does he know that you were _just_ planting the device?"

"Grow up, Doctor. He knows not to get attached to me. He's a soldier. He's fine."

"And if I told you the kiss made me jealous?"

John wasn't fully awake, and maybe he was still pretty foggy on where he was, but he was pretty sure there was a savage smile on The Counsellor's face when next she spoke. "What was it that I heard in your mind when I kissed you? Oh, that's right. _Rule Number One: The Doctor lies._"

"And how would you know that?"

"Because I saw another face during the kiss, you old fool, and it wasn't mine. River, that was her name, wasn't it?"

Silence. The awkward silence that fills the spaces between two people who once loved one another and now seemed helpless to the compulsion to hurt each other. At some point during the silence The Counsellor became aware of John's growing awareness. He saw her approach in his periphery. His heart gave an uncomfortable little lurch. _Damn it._

"John?" she asked. Warm fingers carded through his hair. "You in there?"

He wanted to joke with her, to reassure her that he was okay by saying something irreverent about _this programme is being hosted by Harriet Smith, Prime Minister, please stand by_, but all he could manage was a weak smile.

She returned the smile, weakness and all. "I'll get Sherlock."

He wanted to reach out and restrain her, maybe take her hand – even just two fingers, _like at the Met when I'd put her off her stride and surprised her, when was the last time someone had done that, eh?_ – but he was still weak and he hated that. She moved away, and he became aware that he was on an impromptu gurney in the TARDIS, _her_ TARDIS, and she was moving in the direction of the Phantom Baker Street.

He turned his face to the other Time Lord. "Hullo," he said.

The Doctor drew closer. "Doctor Watson." He looked around furtively, like a child who'd pinched a packet of Jammie Dodgers from the shop, then pulled that strange tool out of his jacket pocket. He activated it and ran it down John's left side, then examined the tool and the strange glowing green stone at the top of it. "You're fine. You'll be just fine." The alien let out a sigh of relief. "Good."

"The Morrigan?" John asked, his voice rough.

The Doctor gave him a weak smile. "The Counsellor has her in a holding cell here. We're going to meet Torchwood. Jack will negotiate her exile. She's committed several murders, but none of the offended species have much fondness for the death penalty. The exile should be enough."

"John."

John looked over to the door of the Phantom Baker Street. Sherlock was standing in the doorway. John held up his hand. "Sherlock."

Sherlock didn't move. He was in one of those black suits that made him look like an oversized twelve year old. "Right. So, you're back."

"I am."

Sherlock lifted one of his eyebrows. "Fully back?"

John understood. _Mary's death. The alienation. The reunion. The Counsellor. All the changes, then this adventure. Was I willing to leave behind what needed to be left behind and rejoin the chase? Do I want this, whatever the hell this is?_

Then he heard The Counsellor's voice, a bright, vivid memory from right before The Kiss: _"Open your mind."_

Once again, he did. He saw it all, everything that could be waiting for him, and a thin ribbon of adrenaline sang in his veins.

"Oh, God, yes," he said, and his smile was no longer weak.

Sherlock's responding smile wasn't, either.

* * *

It took John about two hours to come fully back to himself. In that time Torchwood had come and gone, The Morrigan firmly in their custody. John had been aware enough to note that she was incredibly subdued, almost eager to go with them. He remembered the promise The Counsellor made about a reunion with The Morrigan's mate.

_The Doctor lies. Does his ex-wife?_

He had been moved back to the well-worn couch in the Phantom Baker Street. As he fazed in and out of consciousness, he became aware of visitors coming and going by turns: Sherlock standing at the window, playing an improvised aria on the violin; The Doctor, leafing through a two-year-old magazine and humming something familiar (_was it Adele?_); Greg Lestrade, slack-jawed as he surveyed the flat as if he was seeing a ghost. The Counsellor didn't show up until John was more firmly himself.

"Hi," she said, entering the sitting room in her customary cat-like silence. She was no longer wearing those ridiculous boots. She was shorter. He was relieved by that – and then he realized he shouldn't be.

"Hi back," he said after a nervous swipe of his lips with his tongue.

"And how are you?"

"You let Lestrade in here."

She pursed her lips, amusement dancing in her eyes. "Okay. I'm chalking that up to a residual effect of the teleporter. Yes, I did."

"Why?"

She shrugged. "He's nice."

"So . . .you like him."

She arched her eyebrow at him, then sank down onto her haunches next to where he was reclined. "I _do_ like him, John, as much as I'm capable of _liking_ anyone – and even then, a smidge less than I _like_ you and Sherlock. Besides, he had some questions about our living arrangement; he seemed convinced the three of us were trying to start some sort of swinger's club. He knows better now. As far as the secret of the TARDIS, he's discreet, so it's fine. It's all fine."

"And . . .The Doctor?"

She frowned. "Why are you asking about him?"

"Is he still around?"

"Do you mean, _alive_, or do you mean aboard my TARDIS?"

"I hadn't even considered the thought that you might kill him."

"I someday might," she said, that nasty smile of hers spreading on her face. "When he least expects it."

"Counsellor –"

"And not even Torchwood could blame me for it. He's on probation as far as I'm concerned, and he knows it. If he screws up just one more time, I'm taking him out." She drew her thumb across her neck in an unmistakably threatening manner.

"Right. So . . .don't get attached to you."

She smiled. "Rule number one."

"Any other rules I should know about, since we're going to be . . .friends?"

"I flirt. Don't take it seriously."

"You don't flirt with Sherlock."

"Yeah, well. It's Sherlock."

"He's been flirted with before."

"By a woman who made her living off of sex. I'm not her."

"Okay. Don't get attached and don't take your flirting seriously. What else?"

Her eyebrows furrowed in concern, then she held her hand out to him. He took it gratefully.

_John, if you're going to do this, there can't be any more of the impulse to sail off into the sunset with a wife. Sherlock and I have come to the conclusion that we're broken things; normal life isn't for us, neither a human nor Time Lord definition of _normal_. Surely you know it isn't for you, either. You need to let that go._

He nodded, swallowing around a rapidly diminishing lump in his throat named _Mary_. _I do know that._

_I'm not saying you can't date. Of course you can, but you can't try to make it anything more than that._

_All respectable women will want some kind of assurance it'll be more than that._

_Why?_

_Because – what do you mean, why?_

_Can't it just be sex?_

_I said _respectable women_, Counsellor. I'm not interested in –_

_What? Irene Adler?_ An image of a wink filled his mind.

He frowned at her. _You're being provocative._

She grinned. _Sorry. Flirting. Not serious._

John groaned and leaned his head back on the sofa. _Fine. No girlfriends. Just dates. _

_I know it's a lot to ask, Three-Continents Watson_. Another slow, flirty smile in his mind. _But I do promise there will be danger and adventure and our own brand of fun. Isn't that worth a redefinition of _normal_?_

He slipped enough of his hand out of hers to retain a grip of only two of her fingers. Then he reached out with his other hand and slowly traced her bottom lip with his thumb. _It's enough for now, Counsellor. You're not the only one who can flirt, you know._ He winked at her and let her go.

"Am I interrupting something?"

They both turned to find Sherlock standing at the door to the sitting room. One of his eyebrows was lifted.

The Counsellor didn't flinch or blush. "No. Just welcoming John back to the land of the living."

"Sentiment," Sherlock said with a dismissive wave of the hand. "There was no threat of him leaving this so-called _land_. Where would he go? Doctor Watson is essentially homeless."

"No he's not. His home is here." The Counsellor gestured to the space around her. "Two-two-one B Baker Street. Or, you know. A reasonable facsimile."

"And what about me?" The Doctor had shouldered his way into the sitting room and stood looking at the three of them with a mix of warmth and envy.

"What about you?" The Counsellor asked, rising to her feet.

"Where is my home?"

John thought it was heartbreaking, this scene. The last two Time Lords adrift in time and space, their planet a stormy wasteland, each of them flailing, trying to find purchase, a hand to hold –

John looked down to see that she'd reclaimed his hand. Was that image coming from her?

"It's not here," she said. Three simple words that cut the cord.

The Doctor bowed his head, then raised it again, a bittersweet smile on his face. "I have nothing, you know," he said.

"You have your TARDIS."

He took a step closer to her, his eyes suddenly dark with warning. "Everything you have now, I had once," he said. "Actually, I've had it several times, this artificial family you've built. It won't last forever, Counsellor. You'll lose them. Maybe they'll abandon you, maybe you'll spare them – whatever happens, it won't last."

John saw the flash of understanding in her mind. She knew. He felt cold.

"Go on," she said, waving at him with her free hand. "Take your bitterness and lies with you, Doctor. And remember, I reserve the right to end you."

John watched him leave and felt fairly sure they'd see him again.

Sherlock drew closer to the couch. "Budge up," he said.

John sat up and Sherlock sat beside him. He took the Counsellor's other hand and the three of them chatted, mind to mind and heart to heart.


	16. Epilogues

**Part One**

"Please pay attention to how this is arranged on your hand."

John watched as The Counsellor snapped the bracelet around his right wrist, then wrapped a thin silver chain around the bracelet. She then pulled a silver ring out of her pocket and looked him in the eye as she slipped it onto the index finger of his right hand. Mary came to mind, that moment during their wedding when she'd slipped a ring onto his left hand – but there was much less pain. It felt more like a fond strain of nostalgia, a bittersweet memory like an old song on the radio.

"Oh, God," Sherlock muttered impatiently.

John and The Counsellor giggled, then she pressed a thin strip of something transparent along his palm, connecting the bracelet and the ring.

"From now on, you have to take it off and put it on by yourself," The Counsellor said, the words feeling a bit like a vow. Her voice was trembling. John grasped her hand and caught her by surprise, mid-thought:

_I will lose you someday, oh, so much, too much it'll hurt, I don't want it to hurt, no attachments, how can I bear this? Attachments, ridiculous, this –_

He let go, giving her the privacy of her thoughts. "So am I now officially married to my work?" he asked, turning to Sherlock.

The Counsellor took their hands in hers, and John could see a memory from Sherlock's perspective: his wedding to Mary. He saw how Sherlock had been sitting in the back, pathetically removed and alone.

_Yes_, thought Sherlock.  
_No_, thought the Counsellor.

And they smiled at each other, all three.

* * *

**Part Two**

"Counsellor! You have to tell me how to save her!"

John was elbow deep in the chest cavity of a female alien. Her breathing was ragged and her eyes were open; she was watching him, terrified.

"Hang on!" the mad Time Lord shouted as she chased Sherlock out of the room.

"Damn it!" John said. He returned his attention to the alien. "Shh. Calm."

"I am calm," she said. "Well, as calm as I can be with some earthling's hand in my chest."

"I can't find your heart."

"That's because it's not in my chest."

He looked down into her chest. His hands were slipping through – entrails? "What is all this, then?" he asked.

"My digestive system and some of my reproductive organs," she answered. Her eyes were still wide with terror, but her voice was as calm as a Sunday morning in the country. It was ludicrous.

"Oh. Well, of course it is. Heart, then?"

"Head."

"Excuse me?"

She rolled her eyes. "If you're trying to save my life, you're going to want to find the rock near my stomach. You're close. A little to the left –"

"This is intensely disturbing."

"I was told you were a professional."

"I am!"

"Fine. Then save my life so I can marry the heir to Fillacolaprintca," she said.

"I'm sorry," he said. His hand closed around something solid and hard and not slippery.

"Just pull."

He did. The rock started to burn in his hand as he pulled it free. The alien female let out a long, gusty sigh of relief.

"Did I get it?" he asked. He lifted the rock in his hand and turned it over. It shone, warm and pulsing white and . . ._alive_. He couldn't get past the idea that it was a beating heart, a precious thing –

"Thank you," the alien said, her smile faint and fading.

"What?" John asked, panicked. The signs were clear: she was dying, now, _right now_.

"Husband," she whispered.

"Here!" The Counsellor shouted. The male alien she pulled along behind her went from dazed to very keen in a second, and he rushed to the female's side. He dropped to his knees beside her and, without so much as an _excuse me_, grabbed the stone from John's hand.

The female gazed up at him, and John saw something different, something amazing. She had just fallen in love. It was that easy and complete, here on the planet of Fillacolaprintca. He noticed the same look on the face of the male alien.

"Wife," he whispered, placing the stone in her mouth.

"Husband," she said again with what had to be her last breath.

Their mouths joined around the stone. It shone, pulsed twice, then –

The female sat up with a gasp, and the male collected her in his arms.

Sherlock jogged into the room. He took in the scene with a glance. "Oh, for God's sake," he grunted. "Counsellor, did you really bring us all this way and all this time for a damned wedding?"

"Come on, Sherlock, it's romantic."

"You told me this was a jewel heist."

"It sort of is!" she cried, gesturing at the two aliens in front of her. "See, on Fillacolaprintca, the bride's family steals the Heart of Marriage from the groom's family. She swallows it and, when it's mature, it bursts free of her stomach and slowly starts to kill her –"

"Counsellor." Sherlock's voice was a low growl.

"Counsellor." John's voice was awkward and uncomfortable. The male alien had just unzipped his jacket. John thought again about the placement of the female's reproductive organs. He flinched.

"Right," The Counsellor said. "Time to run. Congratulations, you two!"

They fled the bridal chamber just as cries of pleasure began to fill the room.

* * *

**Part Three**

"What, all three of you?"

"Yes, Mrs. Hudson."

His former landlady sat uncomfortably on the sofa in the sitting room of the new flat. She fidgeted and looked uncomfortable. "In one flat?"

John gave her a small, tight-lipped smile. "Yes."

"And you're . . .not married?"

"Er, no."

"Well, that's . . ." He could see that she was demonstrably upset and trying very, very hard to hide it. "That's _different_, isn't it?"

He could see so many ways the word _different_ was a euphemism for something else. He knew what people were thinking; he'd seen the gossip magazines. For some reason Sherlock Holmes sharing a flat with John Watson wasn't a big deal, and Sherlock Holmes sharing a flat with _Astrid Smith_ wasn't a big deal, but Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, and _Astrid Smith_ sharing a flat together was a really big, really lascivious deal.

"Sorry we couldn't have made you famous, Mrs. Hudson," John said. He knew it was a little rude, but he'd been holding it back for far too long.

"Oh, boys," she said, forgetting that Sherlock wasn't in the room. "I don't mind being famous. Heaven knows that _before_, we had any number of odd people showing up on the doorstep. It was exciting! But this is just . . ._different_."

"That it is," John said. "But nothing inappropriate is happening, I assure you."

She stood slowly from the sofa, carefully favoring her bum hip. "Well." She looked around again, then gestured to the neatly-wrapped package on the coffee table. "Be sure you share those with Sherlock and, er . . ."

"I will," John said, carefully taking her forearm and guiding her to the front door. "It was very nice of you to drop by and bring us some biscuits, Mrs. Hudson."

"I do miss you boys," she said. "All the carryings-on. It's been so quiet without you."

John smiled, thinking of the last case they'd worked on – the fireworks factory. The explosions. _If you only knew the half of the noise, Mrs. Hudson._ "I bet it has been."

She gave him a deep hug and left.

He picked up the package and carried it into the flat's kitchen. It was spotless. Well, of _course_ it was. The kitchen they used was in the Phantom Baker Street, and, as usual, it was filled with experiments and unwashed mugs and horrid body parts, both animal and human, in the fridge. He couldn't get to that kitchen, however. It was in the TARDIS, which wasn't here. The wardrobe room was empty. The Counsellor and Sherlock had taken it to Los Angeles to visit with Captain Jack Harkness, and he'd been left behind to play nice with Mrs. Hudson.

Right then, the bracelet on his right wrist started to glimmer. The TARDIS had returned. He smiled to himself and started unwrapping the package. Mrs. Hudson's shortbread biscuits. He thought he'd cry from the sheer joy of the sight of them.

"John."

He turned. The Counsellor was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, looking gorgeous in a bright blue sundress and wedge sandals. "Hullo," he said with a fond smile. Yeah, he was supposed to not form an _attachment_ to her, but what the hell did that mean? It was impossible. Friends are _attached_, for God's sake, especially friends who traveled through space and time solving crimes and, sometimes, matchmaking.

And . . .so what if his specific form of _attachment_ went a little deeper? He didn't let her read his mind often. She didn't have to know he was already breaking her rules. And he certainly wasn't asking her to reciprocate.

"Mrs. Hudson?" she asked, nodding her head at the package on the kitchen counter.

"Biscuits," he said, offering her one.

"She's okay?" she asked, accepting his offer and sniffing the treat suspiciously.

"Fine."

She arched her eyebrow at him. "But?"

Sherlock swept into the room and grabbed the biscuit John had been putting in his mouth. He chomped a bite out of it. "But there are too many rumours of our scandalous _lifestyle_ in the press, and it's getting back to her. Her friends are hounding her for information. She came to warn us that we're getting too famous again. It might impact our safety."

John rolled his eyes and picked up another shortbread. "Basically, yes."

"Lifestyle? What about our lifestyle?"

"Don't play stupid, Counsellor, it doesn't become you," Sherlock grumbled around his food.

"Two bachelors and one bachelorette sharing a flat," John said. "People will talk."

"People are talking," Sherlock clarified.

She huffed. "So it's the unmarried status that's bothering everyone?"

"It would appear to be, yes."

She crossed her arms and leaned against the kitchen counter. "And this could potentially impact the safety of our friends."

"We don't have _friends_," Sherlock said, reaching for another biscuit.

"Sherlock," she said, that cross tone in her voice again.

"Maybe it will affect them," John said, "but surely that's quite a long time off. We have no archenemies."

"Not right now we don't," The Counsellor said. "That will change."

"So, what? We change how we live so nobody can disapprove?"

She shrugged. "Bad idea?"

John felt a flush of panic. "Are you asking me to move out?"

Both Sherlock and The Counsellor looked at him like he'd just asked if he had a chance to make it big as a pop singer.

"Okay, so no," he said, exhaling a held breath. "So –"

"I for one don't want it to become necessary for any of us to pull the kind of stunt that requires the faking of death certificates just to keep our . . ._allies_ safe," she said, shooting a harsh look at Sherlock, who was pointedly avoiding her gaze in favor of rooting through the fridge for something to wash down the rich shortbread.

"So then, who's moving out?" John asked. "Because it's the math that's bothering everyone."

"No, it's the unmarried status," she said. "The math is irreducible, John Watson. Do keep up."

He stared hard at her. "What are you saying?"

She slipped her hand into his, and he scrambled to hide his — _Infatuation, enchantment, obsession —_secret feelings from her.

_John, as a friend, as a colleague, as a partner – will you marry me?_

He pulled away violently. He cut his eyes over to Sherlock, who was smiling at him knowingly.

"I – what – you – I – but –"

"It's an Earth custom to give the other party time to consider," she said, turning away and heading for the wardrobe room. "So, you know. Take your time."

John turned to Sherlock. "You –"

"Yes, of course I know. We deduced the reason for Mrs. Hudson's visit while we were out. We came up with the idea together. More believable if you marry her, of course, but I'll do it if you can't."

"Believable?"

"Oh, you know – a widower rebounding and finding love with his colleague's friend. It's the stuff of romance novels."

"But you'll still be living here!"

Sherlock shrugged. "I'm not a threat. The whole underworld already refers to me as The Virgin, remember? I'm the neutral party."

"The neutered party," John said absently.

"There's no reason to be rude."

"I –"

"Again, take your time, think it over. It may never actually come to a problem, but it's better to be safe with these things – you know, in case the Vatican goes into the crime business." He gave John another of those mad-genius smiles, grabbed several more biscuits, and headed off for the wardrobe room.

John leaned against the counter and closed his eyes. _Two of them. Bugger. _He smiled.

**END (for now)**


End file.
